Determining the Debilitative Impact of Test Anxiety

The purpose of this study is to assess how detrimental the effects of anxiety are in ESL language exams. A variety of recent studies have demonstrated significant differences in the emotive reactions of examinees to various language tests. And dozens of research reports in psychology literature identify both facilitating and debilitating results from test anxiety. But to date there have not been any published accounts of attempts to measure the impact of debilitating anxiety generated by ESL for foreign language tests. To assess the impact of anxiety, a battery of six different ESL examinations was administered to 114 EL1 students ranging in ability from beginning to advanced. These students were also administered the Alpert and Haber Achievement Anxiety Test. Performance on the most anxiety‐producing subtest is shown to be debilitating for the most anxious‐prone students. The study demonstrates that high anxiety‐producing ESL tests not only are psychologically debilitating but also are less valid and potentially biased in favor of students with low test anxiety.