Assessing various coping strategies and their effects on test performance and anxiety

Abstract

Investigated the use of cognitive coping strategies in meeting the stressfulness of a testing situation and the relation of these strategies to performance and test anxiety. Sixty-seven students completed a measure of cognitive (worry) and physiological-affective (emotionality) components of test anxiety immediately before and after a course examination. A 30-item questionnaire was designed to measure cognitive methods of coping. In addition to the use of correlations, students were grouped according to their predominant coping strategy, and group differences were examined via analyses of variance. Rationalization and isolation were associated with better performance, preoccupation and resignation with higher anxiety and poorer performance, and denial with lower anxiety.