Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe effects of trait anxiety, mathematical ability, method of testing, task difficulty, and their interactions, on state anxiety and performance in mathematics at primary school( 1979)A review was made of the theoretical and research literature related to the trait-state concept of anxiety, the relationship of anxiety to academic performance; and some factors confounding the anxiety, performance relationship. A study investigating the differential effect of anxiety on performance under two different methods of testing was reviewed. A study to replicate the findings related to anxiety, performance and varying test precedures was proposed. Data collected in the study made possible an investigation of Spielberger's Trait-State concept of anxiety and Spence's Drive Theory. One hundred and seventy six male, State primary school children drawn from sixteen grade five and six classes took part in the study. All testing was carried out in term I of 1978. As hypothesized the formal method of testing proved to be more anxiety arousing than the informal method of testing and students performed better under the latter testing procedure. Low anxious students performed better than high anxious students under both testing conditions. The study provided further support for Spielberger's Trait-State anxiety theory with high trait anxious students displaying higher levels of state anxiety than law trait anxious students, confirming that the State-A scale is a sensitive device for measuring differential anxiety arousal. The hypotheses related to Spence's Drive Theory were only partially supported by the results. Explanations as to why the interaction between task difficulty, ability and anxiety might not have been significant in this study were discussed. In general this study found evidence confirming the notion that high anxiety hinders performance, particularly for low ability students.
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ItemRelieving anxiety in multiple choice examinations( 1979)Studies performed by McKeachie, Pollie and Spiesman C1953) and Smith and Rockett C1958) investigated the relationship between freedom to comment on multiple choice examinations and subsequent examination performance, McKeachie et al reported a significant benefit for subjects given freedom to comment and Smith and Rockett, although unable to replicate these results, noted an interaction between freedom to comment and anxiety, In both cases, anxiety was presumed to be the mediating factor for the improvement in performance, however no attempt was made to measure anxiety as a dependent variable in either study. A pilot study was conducted using as subjects 128 National Servicemen at the Army School of Signals, with the aim of further investigating the comment effects and monitoring any Changes in anxiety which may be produced by allowing freedom to comment. The results of this pilot study were inconclusive, primarily because of little evidence that the instructions to feel free to comment were perceived clearly by the subjects. However, the actual results obtained were not inconsistent with those of McKeachie et al or Smith and Rockett. An interesting feature of the pilot study was the use of the Solomon Four Control Group design. In the major experimental study considerable effort was directed towards ensuring that the instructions regarding freedom to comment were adequately communicated to the subjects, who were 296 grade 11 students at a Melbourne metropolitan boys' high school. The major study attempted to establish whether or not a comment main effect or a comment by anxiety interaction existed and established conditions whereby the mechanism for such effects could be further investigated. Once again the results of the experiment were inconclusive although they tended to. support the hypothesis that freedom to comment leads to an improvement in performance and a relative decrease in anxiety. Also the results were not inconsistent with the existence of a weak comment by anxiety interaction such that high anxious subjects benefit more from freedom to comment than do low anxious subjects. There was no support for the suggestion made by McKeachie et al that subjects benefit from freedom to comment whether they actually comment or not.