Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, and College Exam Grades

A student’s level of self-efficacy and test anxiety directly impacts their academic success (Abdi, Bageri, Shoghi, Goodarzi, & Hosseinzadeh, 2012; Hassanzadeh, Ebrahimi, & Mahdinejad, 2012). When a student doubts themself and their own ability to test well, the students’ sole focus becomes worrying about poor grades and cannot focus on academics (Bandura, 1993). But, little is understood about how test-anxiety and self-efficacy affect short-term success in the classroom. Specifically, how test anxiety and level of self-efficacy directly preceding an exam will affect the exam score. Pre-and post-questionnaires assessing anxiety and self-efficacy immediately before and after a single college exam was completed by 110 college students and exam grades were obtained from the instructor. Results showed a strong relationship between both test anxiety and exam grades, and self-efficacy and exam grades. Further, multiple linear regression analyses showed that exam grade could be predicted by test anxiety and self-efficacy level, and that self-efficacy moderated the effects of anxiety.