Test anxiety, working memory, and cognitive performance: Supportive effects of sequential demands

Substantial evidence suggests that test anxiety is associated with poor per formance in complex tasks. Based on the differentiation of coordinative and sequential demands on working memory (Mayr & Kliegl, 1993), two studies ex amined the effects of sequential demands on the relationship between test a nxiety and cognitive performance. Both studies found that high sequential d emands had beneficial effects on the speed and accuracy of the performance of test-anxious participants. It is suggested that the more frequent memory updates associated with high sequential demands may represent external pro cessing aids that compensate for the restricted memory capacity of individu als with high test anxiety.