Gender Differences in Test Anxiety and Effort Regulation 1
Gender Differences in Test Anxiety and Its Relationship with Effort Regulation
Mandy Roosendaal, 2663488
Psychology, Statistics 1
Pieter-Bas Prins, group 11
Word count: 865
18-12-2019
, GENDER DIFFERENCES IN TEST ANXIETY AND EFFORT REGULATION 2
Gender Differences in Test Anxiety and Its Relationship with Effort Regulation
According to Varasteh, Ghanizadeh, and Akbari (2016), one of the primary objectives of
education is to prepare individuals to be effective learners and to be one, students need an
effective effort regulation. However, Varasteh, Ghanizadeh, and Akbari (2016) also state that
several factors can interfere with effort regulation, including test anxiety.
Effort regulation is defined as the continuity students show when they encounter a
difficult task. Test anxiety has an emotional (affective and physiological arousal aspects of
anxiety) and cognitive (a worry) component. This study aims to find an answer to the question of
how effort regulation and test anxiety correlate to each other.
The hypotheses for this research question are (1) that there is a negative relationship
between test anxiety and effort regulation and (2) that test anxiety scores are higher among
females than among males. As Varasteh, Ghanizadeh, and Akbari (2016) described, test anxiety
seems to interfere with effort regulation which means that high test anxiety results in low effort
regulation. Núñez-Peña, Suárez-Pellicioni, and Bono (2016) found that test anxiety is more
common among females in a self-report study that controlled for different test subjects. In this
study, test anxiety was not only more common among females, the reported levels of test anxiety
were also higher than among males.
Method
Participants
The participants of this study were 250 students from four different study programs of the
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam: psychology (80.6%), pedagogy (9.7%), PMC (5.2%), and PA-
square (4.4%). However, three participants did not fill out the questionnaire so for this study the
data of 247 participants was used. Of these students, 26.2% were male and 73.8% were female.
Gender Differences in Test Anxiety and Its Relationship with Effort Regulation
Mandy Roosendaal, 2663488
Psychology, Statistics 1
Pieter-Bas Prins, group 11
Word count: 865
18-12-2019
, GENDER DIFFERENCES IN TEST ANXIETY AND EFFORT REGULATION 2
Gender Differences in Test Anxiety and Its Relationship with Effort Regulation
According to Varasteh, Ghanizadeh, and Akbari (2016), one of the primary objectives of
education is to prepare individuals to be effective learners and to be one, students need an
effective effort regulation. However, Varasteh, Ghanizadeh, and Akbari (2016) also state that
several factors can interfere with effort regulation, including test anxiety.
Effort regulation is defined as the continuity students show when they encounter a
difficult task. Test anxiety has an emotional (affective and physiological arousal aspects of
anxiety) and cognitive (a worry) component. This study aims to find an answer to the question of
how effort regulation and test anxiety correlate to each other.
The hypotheses for this research question are (1) that there is a negative relationship
between test anxiety and effort regulation and (2) that test anxiety scores are higher among
females than among males. As Varasteh, Ghanizadeh, and Akbari (2016) described, test anxiety
seems to interfere with effort regulation which means that high test anxiety results in low effort
regulation. Núñez-Peña, Suárez-Pellicioni, and Bono (2016) found that test anxiety is more
common among females in a self-report study that controlled for different test subjects. In this
study, test anxiety was not only more common among females, the reported levels of test anxiety
were also higher than among males.
Method
Participants
The participants of this study were 250 students from four different study programs of the
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam: psychology (80.6%), pedagogy (9.7%), PMC (5.2%), and PA-
square (4.4%). However, three participants did not fill out the questionnaire so for this study the
data of 247 participants was used. Of these students, 26.2% were male and 73.8% were female.
