Anxiety and coping in the context of a school examination

Cognitive appraisal and state anxiety of 137 high school students were exam ined immediately before school examination, immediately after the examinati on and immediately after the announcement of grades (one week later). Situa tional coping responses were assessed immediately after the examination. So cial evaluation trait anxiety was measured two weeks before the examination in an unstressful (neutral) situation. The results show that the social ev aluation trait anxiety predicts state anxiety both before and after the sch ool examination and in addition to this, an important role is played by the perception of threat and uncontrollability in this situation. The use of s pecific strategies of coping was also determined by both the personality an d the perception of the examination situation, wherein the different strate gies were determined by different sets of variables. Success in the examina tion was best predicted by the social evaluation trait anxiety, by problem focused coping and by coping through imagination-rumination (negative relat ion). In general, the results of the present study provide additional suppo rt for the interactional model of stress and anxiety.