How to Reduce Test Anxiety and Academic Procrastination Through Inquiry of Cognitive Appraisals: A Pilot Study Investigating the Role of Academic Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Background and objectives: Test anxiety can impair learning motivation and lead to procrastination. Control-value theory of achievement emotions (Pekrun, 2006) assumes test anxiety to be a result of students' appraisals of the testing situation and its outcomes. Modification of cognitive appraisals such as low self-efficacy beliefs is thus assumed to reduce test anxiety and subsequent procrastination. In the present study, we tested the effects of an inquiry-based stress reduction (IBSR) intervention on students' academic self-efficacy, their test anxiety, and subsequent procrastination in the final stages of an academic term.

Design: Longitudinal quasi-randomized intervention control trial.

Methods: University students identified worry thoughts regarding a specific and frightening testing situation. Intervention participants (n = 40) explored their worry thoughts with the IBSR method. Participants of an active waitlist control group (n = 31) received the intervention after the study was completed. Dependent variables were assessed before and after the intervention as well as at the end of the term.

Results: Data-analyses revealed that the IBSR intervention reduced test anxiety as well as subsequent academic procrastination in comparison to the control group. The effect on test anxiety was partly due to an enhancement of self-efficacy.

Conclusion: Our findings provide preliminary evidence that IBSR might help individuals to cope with their test anxiety and procrastination.

Keywords: academic procrastination; academic self-efficacy; cognitive appraisals; educational psychology; inquiry-based stress reduction; test anxiety.

FIGURE 1

Path model of academic self-efficacy, test anxiety, and academic procrastination for all times of measurement. Depicted in gray color are first- and second-order autoregressive paths. Depicted in black color are direct effects of the IBSR intervention (dummy coded IBSR = 1 vs. control group = 0) on the dependent variables at time 2 and time 3, causal paths from academic self-efficacy measured at time 2 on test anxiety and academic procrastination measured at time 3, and from test anxiety measured at time 2 on academic procrastination measured at time 3. For increased readability, correlations between (residuals of) dependent variables were omitted in the graphical presentation of the model. Model fit: χ²(19) = 19.817, p = 0.406; CFI = 0.997; RMSEA = 0.025; SRMR = 0.081. All continuous variables were z-standardized. All reported parameter estimates are unstandardized. N = 71. ^†p ≤ 0.10, ^∗p ≤ 0.05, ^∗∗p ≤ 0.01, ^∗∗∗p ≤ 0.001. Reported are significance levels based one-tailed p-values.

FIGURE 2

Conditional Parallel Multiple Mediation Models for Academic Procrastination Measured at Time 3. All continuous variables were z-standardized. All reported parameter estimates are unstandardized. N = 71. ^†p ≤ 0.10, ^∗p ≤ 0.05, ^∗∗p ≤ 0.01, ^∗∗∗p ≤ 0.001. Reported are significance levels based one-tailed p-values.