The development and validation of an instrument for measuring children's test anxiety.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The emphasis on increased student achievement and accountability in education has resulted in extensive testing of American elementary school students. Research has indicated that many students in grades 3–6 experience significant test anxiety. However, there are relatively few instruments with evidence of reliability and construct validity for measuring children's test anxiety. This study addressed the need for an up-to-date self-report instrument which could be used to identify test-anxious children, and in other research related to the treatment and understanding of test anxiety among elementary school students.
Data were collected from over 450 students in grades 3–6 during the development of the Children's Test Anxiety Scale (CTAS). Instrument development was completed in three phases. The first two phases involved defining the domain of the construct, writing an initial pool of 107 items, and reviewing the items for revision and deletion. The goal of the third phase was to determine through item analysis the items that would be most appropriate for the reduced version of the CTAS.
An additional 261 students and 13 teachers provided data from classroom administrations of the 30-item CTAS during the validation phase. Evidence of construct validity for the CTAS was obtained through a factor analysis of the student response data, and by correlating 50 student self-reports with teacher ratings of the students' test anxiety levels. The results of the factor analysis supported the theoretical definition of children's test anxiety that had guided the development of the CTAS. The correlation between the teacher ratings and the student CTAS scores was not statistically significant. Several reasons for the discrepancies between the two measures were discussed. These included cultural differences between the teachers and students, social desirability response set among students, and teacher misperceptions of test anxiety.
Based upon the research findings, it was concluded that the CTAS is a reliable self-report instrument, and that further evidence of validity would be necessary to provide more meaningful interpretations of CTAS scores. It was also concluded that teachers of regular education classes in elementary schools are generally unable to accurately perceive test anxiety among their students.