Reconceptualizing Social and Emotional Competence Assessment in School Settings

The mental health needs of youth are both significant and increasing. Recent advancements have highlighted the need to reduce psychological distress while promoting the development of important social and emotional competencies. Current social and emotional assessment tools are limited in important ways that preclude their widespread use. In the current article, these limitations are discussed. A novel social and emotional learning assessment framework guided by methodological and theoretical innovations is presented. Future research directions and opportunities are discussed.

Cognitive perspectives on maintaining physicians' medical expertise: V. Using a motivational framework to understand the benefits and costs of testing

We apply a motivational perspective to understand the implications of physicians' longitudinal assessment. We review the literature on situated expectancy-value theory, achievement goals, mindsets, anxiety, and stereotype threat in relation to testing and assessment. This review suggests several motivational benefits of testing as well as some potential challenges and costs posed by high-stakes, standardized tests. Many of the motivational benefits for testing can be understood from the equation of having the perceived benefits of the test outweigh the perceived costs of preparing for and taking the assessment. Attention to instructional framing, test purposes and values, and longitudinal assessment frameworks provide vehicles to further enhance motivational benefits and reduce potential costs of assessment.

COVID-19 meets control-value theory: Emotional reactions to canceled high-stakes examinations

In many countries, examinations scheduled for summer 2020 were canceled as part of measures designed to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. To examine how four retrospective emotions about canceled examinations (relief, gratitude, disappointment, and anger) and one prospective emotion (test anxiety) were related to control-value appraisals, a sample of 474 participants in the UK aged 15-19 years, who would have taken high-stakes examinations if they had not been canceled, self-reported measures of control, value, retrospective emotions and test anxiety. Data were analysed using the confirmatory factor analysis within exploratory structural equation modeling (EwC) approach. Relief, gratitude, and anger were predicted from expectancy × value interactions. Disappointment was related to expectancy only. Test anxiety was predicted independently by expectancy and positive/negative value. Findings offer broad support for Control-Value Theory and show how the appraisals underpinning achievement emotions can differ when focused on canceled examinations rather than success or failure.

Revisiting the Role of Worries in Explaining the Link Between Test Anxiety and Test Performance

The inverse relationship between test anxiety and test performance is commonly explained by test-anxious students' tendency to worry about a test and the consequences of failing. However, other cognitive facets of test anxiety have been identified that could account for this link, including interference by test-irrelevant thoughts and lack of confidence. In this study, we compare different facets of test anxiety in predicting test performance. Seven hundred thirty university students filled out the German Test Anxiety Inventory after completing a battery of standardized tests assessing general intelligence and mathematical competencies. Multiple regressions revealed that interference and lack of confidence but not worry or arousal explained unique variance in students' test performance. No evidence was found for a curvilinear relationship between arousal and performance. The present results call for revisiting the role of worries in explaining the test anxiety-performance link and can help educators to identify students who are especially at risk of underperforming on tests.

Test anxiety, anxiety disorders, and school-related wellbeing: Manifestations of the same or different constructs?

Previous studies have shown that highly test anxious persons are more likely to meet criteria for an anxiety disorder and report more frequent symptoms of anxiety disorders than their low test anxious counterparts. However, it is unclear whether test anxiety should be treated as distinct to, or a manifestation of, anxiety disorders. Furthermore, the Dual Factor Model of Mental Health proposes that high subjective wellbeing cannot be solely inferred from the absence of psychopathology. To date, no studies have examined the Dual Factor Model in relation to test anxiety. In the present study, we examined how test anxiety, two common anxiety disorders (i.e., generalized anxiety disorder [GAD] and panic disorder [PD]), and subjective wellbeing in the school domain (i.e., school-related wellbeing) were related in a sample of 918 adolescents (M age = 15.77 years) using network analysis and latent profile analysis. Results from the network analysis indicated that test anxiety, GAD, PD, and school-related wellbeing were represented as distinct constructs. Bridge nodes were identified that linked test anxiety with GAD, PD, and school-related wellbeing. The latent profile analysis identified three of the four profiles predicted by the Dual Factor Model, including (a) troubled (i.e., low school-related wellbeing, high test anxiety, GAD, and PD), (b) complete mental health (i.e., high school-related wellbeing, low test anxiety, GAD, and PD), and (c) symptomatic but content (i.e., average school-related wellbeing, test anxiety, GAD, and PD). We concluded that test anxiety was distinct from, rather than a manifestation of, GAD and PD. We found support for the Dual Factor Model, albeit not unequivocal, using test anxiety as an additional indicator of psychopathology to that of GAD and PD.

The relationship between test anxiety and emotion regulation: the mediating effect of psychological resilience

BACKGROUND

Test anxiety has been widely found in medical students. Emotion regulation and psychological resilience have been identified as key factors contributing to anxiety. However, studies on relationships were limited. This study investigated the links between psychological resilience, emotion regulation, and test anxiety in addition to exploring the differences about socio-demographic factors.

METHODS

A sample of 1266 medical students was selected through cross-sectional survey from a medical university in China during 2019. Data were obtained by network technique using designed questionnaire, which assesses the level of test anxiety, emotion regulation and psychological resilience, respectively.

RESULTS

Medical students experienced test anxiety at different levels, 33.7% of these were seriously. It revealed significant effects of the gender and academic performance on test anxiety. Results of logistic regression indicated that test anxiety was significantly associated with emotion regulation and psychological resilience (p < 0.01). Psychological resilience played a mediating role on the relationship between emotion regulation and test anxiety.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings highlight the importance of psychological resilience and emotion regulation in understanding how psychological resilience relates to test anxiety in medical students. Resilience-training intervention may be developed to support students encountering anxiety during the exam.

Does Test Anxiety Predispose Poor School-Related Wellbeing and Enhanced Risk of Emotional Disorders?

Background

Previous studies have shown that children and adolescents who report high levels of test anxiety also report symptoms of, and meet clinical criteria for, emotion disorders (anxiety and depression). However, the directionality of this relation cannot be established from existing studies: Is high test anxiety predisposing persons at elevated risk for developing emotion disorders or vice versa? In the present study, we addressed this question in a sample of adolescents. In addition to the risk of developing an emotion disorder, based on the Dual Factor Model of Mental Health, we also considered school-related wellbeing.

Method

Self-reported data were collected over two waves from 1198 participants, aged 16–19 years, in upper secondary education.

Results

Data were analysed using a structural equation model controlling for gender and age. We found reciprocal relations between test anxiety and elevated risk for developing emotion disorders, and between school-related wellbeing and elevated risk for developing emotion disorders. School-related wellbeing was negatively related to subsequent test anxiety but not vice versa.

Conclusions

Our findings imply that there would be downstream benefits to improved mental health from using interventions to address test anxiety but also, from addressing emotion disorders, to improve school-related wellbeing and test anxiety.