Test anxiety versus academic skills: A comparison of two alternative models for predicting performance in a statistics exam

Background. Two competing theoretical models to explain academic performanc e were proposed. The interference model stresses the detrimental effect of task-irrelevant thoughts during the test-taking situation whereas the defic it model suggests Study Habits and domain-specific skills as main predictor s of test performance. Aims. The study compares the two models by determining the relative contrib ution of Test Anxiety, Study Habits, and Maths Skill to performance in a st atistics exam. Sample. Sixty-six undergraduate students who were enrolled in the first sem ester of two parallel introductory statistics courses participated in the s tudy. Method. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed on the performance in the final statistics exam. The unique variance attributable to Test Anxi ety, Study Habits, and Maths Skill was calculated. Results. Both Maths Skill and Test Anxiety added unique variance in explain ing performance, whereas Study Habits did not. Although Maths Skill emerged as relatively more important than Test Anxiety, a purely deficit-based acc ount nevertheless appears untenable because interfering effects of Test Anx iety during the examination also contributed an important portion of varian ce. Conclusions, It is recommended that cognitive-attentional accounts stressin g test anxiety be supplemented by a deficit formulation, and that multimoda l counselling address both Test Anxiety and skill deficits. Comment. Methodological problems in investigating the causal relationship b etween skill deficits, anxiety, and performance are discussed.