Test anxiety: Is it associated with performance in high-stakes examinations?

A long-established literature has found that anxiety about testing is negatively related to academic achievement. Yet there remains some debate as whether this simply due less academically able pupils being more likely develop education-related issues. This paper presents new evidence on matter, focusing upon how test – measured by five questions included in the PISA 2015 survey grades 15/16-year-olds achieve England’s high-stakes GCSE examinations. I find little teenagers with low or high levels of lower than average anxiety. Thus, contrast much existing literature, no clear relationship between and examination performance found.