Examining the Correlation of Test Anxiety, Test-wiseness, Student Motivation, and Metacognition of Praxis I Scores at an Historically

In 2001, the No Child Left Behind legislature was introduced, along with the era of the highly qualified teacher. A highly qualified teacher meant that teachers not only had to graduate from an accredited teacher preparation program but also had to pass Praxis I and II tests. However, Praxis I became a test of elimination because teachers no longer had to pass Praxis I to be a highly qualified teacher but had to pass Praxis I to enter into a teacher preparation program. In 2001, Norfolk State University (NSU) had the lowest pass rate of Praxis I scores among Virginia schools (Walzer & Warchol, 2001). This caused a curriculum change at NSU, and the School of Education created a Student Success Triad program, which is a three-tier program that focuses on assessment, curriculum, and research to give students a customized learning program to pass Praxis I (Hunter, 2009). In 2005, there was a change in the requirements of passing Praxis I as the only result for teacher candidates at NSU. Teacher candidates could now use their SAT, ACT, or Virginia Communication and Literacy Assessment. However, these options are not possible for many students, especially due to the fact that the minimum admittance scores used for admission into NSU was lower than the score needed to use the new options that were introduced in 2005. Research has discussed preparation programs for any discipline that takes a standardized test. The four variables that emerge from this research (Chittoran & Miles, 2001; Miyasaka, 2000) are metacognitive skills, test-wiseness, test anxiety, and student motivation. This study wanted to determine if these four variables had a relationship to the Praxis I scores at NSU. A multiple regression was completed using a convenience sample of teacher candidates. The study used the Motivation Student Learning Questionnaire and the Knowledge of TestTaking Skills Inventory. After using 60 teacher candidates in NSU, the multiple regression showed that there was no relationship at a .5 level for metacognitive skills (.36), test-wiseness (.85), text anxiety (.55), and student motivation (.65).