Test Anxiety and Academic Achievement among Secondary School Students: Dimensional Profiles, Gender Differences, and Associations with Prior Achievement
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62843/jrsr/2026.v.iv.233Keywords:
Test Anxiety, Academic Achievement, Perceived Control, Cognitive Interference, Gender Differences, Secondary EducationAbstract
Examination results shape secondary school students’ educational pathways, and test anxiety is widely believed to undermine achievement. Evidence from recent studies, however, is mixed, and little is known about how different dimensions of test anxiety relate to achievement among secondary students in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan. To describe the levels of five dimensions of test anxiety among Grade 9 students, compare test anxiety and achievement across gender, and examine the association between test anxiety (overall and by dimension) and prior academic achievement. In this cross-sectional correlational study, 120 Grade 9 students (71 male, 49 female) were randomly selected from a population of 259 in Tehsil Tarkhal, District Sudhnoti. A 25-item, five-point questionnaire measured worry, test-irrelevant thinking, bodily symptoms, tension, and perceived control (α = .72-.94). Achievement was students’ Grade 8 marks, grouped into three bands. Analyses used descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, correlation/regression, a t test, and a chi-square test. Bodily symptoms had the highest mean (M = 3.79), followed by test-irrelevant thinking (3.61), tension (3.59), and worry (3.40); perceived control had the lowest (2.78). Overall test anxiety was slightly higher among female (M = 3.50) than male students (M = 3.39). Female students had higher prior achievement than male students, t (83) = 3.43, p < .001, d = 0.67. Overall test anxiety was not significantly associated with achievement, r = −.08, p = .36, and no individual dimension showed a significant association (|r| ≤ .14, all p ≥ .13). Students reported pronounced bodily and cognitive symptoms of test anxiety, yet these were not reliably related to Grade 8 marks. The findings align with recent work questioning a simple anxiety-to-performance pathway and point to the need for longitudinal designs with concurrent performance measures.
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