Introduction

Test stress among students is an important aspect that has been of great concern to students, their teachers, and their parents. Since change is the only constant aspect of life, students find it difficult to come to terms during test times. Exam anxiety has been a major cause of stress students for a long time. Exam time comes along with pressure as students strive to ensure that they get results acceptable to them, their teachers and parents.   This becomes a critical time that has necessitated various scholars and psychologists to carry out extensive researches to establish the prevalence of these conditions. The researches have also worked tirelessly to understand the most affected ages, major causes and how best to deal with such instances.

Literature review

The previous studies have defined tests stress as a specific situation trait that describes the extent at which students find test periods are threatening to them. In essence, it refers to the fear of failure or emphasizing how certain performance will be judged.  To prove the prevalence of the test stress, several types of research have been instituted to prove that these situations are experienced in real life. Empirical studies were carried out among different students at different academic levels. For instance, research was conducted to the 12th standard students in six different schools (Kaur and Sharma, 2011). It is, however, imperative understanding that the research process had many disturbances since some schools refused to allow their students to participate in such studies.

Scholars and psychologists argue that we live in test conscious and test giving culture. This implies that most of life is covered by tests and greatly determines the kind of persons we are. On the other hand, student’s success largely depends on the kind of performance derived from tests incurred during their curriculum. The understanding f this concept has resulted in the increasing concern in this study that was previously ignored especially in the United Kingdom. The increased value for children and adolescents has resulted in increased research aimed at determining how exam stress affects these students (Lawrence, 2011).

The research process involved students between the ages of 15 to 19 years. The research confirmed that the test stress is more prevalent among the male students as compared to their female counterparts. This could be explained by the great enrollment to schools by males as compared to their females. These researches have also confirmed that exam anxiety is prevalent across religion boundaries and inter-disciplines (Grills-Taquechel, Norton and Ollendick, 2010).  Exam anxiety or test stress was also found to be prevalent among different learning institutions and different academic levels. In essence, test stress is a real issue in real life and thus making it worth analyzing the situation and understands how to deal with such situations.

The issue of test stress has significant implications in real life that make it worth analysis. For instance, the study can be of significance importance in explaining the different results in an exam among different students (Rezazadeh and Tavakoli, 2009). For example, previous studies have found that there are different levels of academic efforts between different students. Most highly test anxious students are said to make more efforts in their studies as compared to their counterparts who are not greatly worried by tests (Nath, Ghosh and Das, 2015). To avoid the dire consequences of test failure, most of these highly exam anxious students are said to have better study methods and skills to enhance the performance. In essence test stresses always have distinct features that define cognitive and behavioral aspects of students.

For example, the instances of low self-esteem can be explained by the existence of the test stresses among students. Long term stressing moments can result in increased demoralization to the victims. Negative believes can be the best explanation for the most cases of students with low esteem. This makes it imperative for scholars to ensure that they encourage such students to enable them have a positive approach to life (Kaur and Sharma, 2011).  In some instances, exam anxiety has resulted in increased cases of school dropouts and increased cases of indiscipline. However with the extensive understanding of the prevalence of the test stress, it is possible to understand the negative impacts that come along with them and take appropriate actions (Lawrence, 2011).  It also plays a significant role in determining ways of improving students’ performance and grades.

Apart from the researches on the prevalence of test stress, there have also been other researches on this concept. For example, other studies have tried to find out major causes of test stress among students. The research found that the most stressors in test moments include; fear, judgments from others, consequences, appeals by teachers and markers of self-esteem. According to these researches, students in most cases gauge themselves with the grades they get during tests. By this virtue, most of these derive self-esteem from the results of tests and thus they will always strive to get the best results (Forushani and Besharat, 2011). Judgment from fellow students, teachers and parents also cause stress among students since they will always try to get acceptable results to the different parties involved.

There have also been previous researches that have tried to test the relationship between test stress and the performance of the students. Most of these studies have confirmed test stress is associated with negative impact on the examination performances among the students. These researches confirmed that negative impact on examination performance in the formal and the informal sector can be explained by the prevalence of tests stress among students. The research has confirmed that students with a potential to get a grade A can get B or C grades resulting to the test stress eminent during exam time (Nath, Ghosh and Das, 2015).

There have also been researches with an objective of determining the causes of anxiety and how to deal with such cases. For instance, there were theories that poor study skills among students would translate to increased stress during tests. The research asserted that students would fail in their tests since students would anticipate their failure even before they take the real tests (Liu, 2015). There has been confirmed a relationship between the test stress and students performance. It is, however, imperative noting that the relationship between the two variables is not a causal relationship. There have been suggestions that poor study skills are not in any way related to test stress.

Although both test stress and poor study skills among students contribute to poor performance, researches have suggested that poor study skills have a more direct impact on performance as compared to the test stress.  It is, however, prudent noting that test stress is correlated with poor academic performance among students. In fact, previous researches have confirmed that about 25% of primary and high school students in America have suffered from test stress and thus performing dismally (Grills-Taquechel, Norton and Ollendick, 2010). Such results have also been experienced globally with over 10 million students suffering lower academic performance resulting from increased exam anxiety.

Further studies by Chapell, Blanding, and Silverstein that was conducted among 5,551 graduate and undergraduate students in Illinois found a significant difference in levels of academic achievement across different levels of test stress.  The research involved low, moderate and high-stress test among the different levels of education (Kaur and Sharma, 2011). This research confirmed that students at these levels of education with low test anxiety had better academic achievement as compared to students with higher and moderate test stress. On this note, students with moderate test stress have higher academic excellence as compared to students with higher test stress. This indicates a linear relationship between the levels of test stress with academic excellence.

Previous studies were also concerned in determining how test different levels affected test stress. For example, the studies noted that low stake exams and high stake exams have different performances determined by tests stress. These researches suggest that low stake tests such as short class test are less affected by test stress as compared to high stake tests. There has also been extensive on the relationship between IQ and test stress among the students (Forushani and Besharat, 2011). Nevertheless, this research failed to give a precise conclusion on this topic based on the difficulties involved in assessing IQ among students.

Apart from the academic performance and its impact on test stress, there have been researches on other variables associated with test stress among students. Prevalence of the test stress can be associated with other variables that lead to miserable learning sessions.   For example, there has been a significant relationship between test stress and impaired concentration, attention, and memory loss. All these factors also have a definite relationship with the academic performance of the students. Memory loss and impaired attention contribute significantly to decreased performance among students across different academic levels (Grills-Taquechel, Norton and Ollendick, 2010). This research was motivated by increased cases of declined performance among students in different parts of the world.

Though there has been extensive research on the concept of test stress and the performance of students, there are still some essential areas that should be addressed immediately (Owoyele, 2009). For example, it is clear that prevalence of these conditions has contributed immensely to underperformance among students. However, these empirical studies have failed to address the identification process. Any healing process starts with identification and it is, therefore, prudent that scholars should research on how to identify stressors among student (Lawrence, 2011). Additionally, the researchers have failed to make suggestions on possible solutions to this problem that is likely to lower academic standards amongst the students in all parts of the world. It is imperative that future studies will be concerned with determining the causes as well as possible remedies to solve this problem.

Despite the numerous studies and researches on tests stress on students, there are still areas of further research. There are still numerous areas of concern that require extensive research to cover a certain gap in the research process. Although test stresses have a significant impact on the academic performance of students, other constructs such as the achievement goals and academic self-concept are areas worth the intensive research. It is imperative to determine other factors that play significant role in determining the actual performance of students. Failure to address such concerns will always tempt people to believe fear of failure is the main cause of underperformance among students (Grills-Taquechel, Norton and Ollendick, 2010). For example, there are instances whereby students hold performance-avoidance goals that might be disastrous for the overall performance of the students. A Clear distinction between test stress and other variables is critical, and further researches should be wary of such factors.

Conclusion

In conclusion, test stress among students is real and has major impacts on the real life. Despite the declined levels of academic performances, the prevalence of this vice has had other dangerous implications amongst adolescents. For example, it has been proved that low self-esteem, bad behaviors and increased cases of school drop outs are also major social problems associated with test stress in a school system (Forushani and Besharat, 2011).  Most of these traits are brought about by academic failure that results from low attention, decreased motivation and fear of the unknown. Having confirmed the prevalent of the vice and the dire consequences it is associated with, it is paramount that family and institutions should work towards assisting their children dealing with exam anxiety. It is important to establish counseling sessions and behavioral techniques that can help students to cope with test stress and boost their morale by showing that exams and tests are just part of life (Yousefi et al., 2010). It is also worth caring further researches to unearth important preventive activities that can help institutions and families with victims of test stress.

References

“A Study on Stress of Higher Secondary School Teachers In Relation To the Academic Achievement of Their Students”. (2013). IOSR-JHSS, 18(6), pp.56-58.

Forushani, N. and Besharat, M. (2011). Relation between emotional intelligence and perceived stress among female students. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 30, pp.1109-1112.

Grills-Taquechel, A., Norton, P. and Ollendick, T. (2010). A longitudinal examination of factors predicting anxiety during the transition to middle school. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 23(5), pp.493-513.

Kaur, D. and Sharma, V. (2011). Depression Among Adolescents in Relation to Their Academic Stress. IJAR, 4(5), pp.183-185.

Lawrence, A. (2011). Relationship Between Study Habits and Academic Achievement of Higher Secondary School Students. IJAR, 4(6), pp.143-145.

Liu, Y. (2015). The longitudinal relationship between Chinese high school students’ academic stress and academic motivation. Learning and Individual Differences, 38, pp.123-126.

Nath, S., Ghosh, S. and Das, S. (2015). Relation between intelligence, emotional intelligence, and academic performance among medical interns. Open Journal of Psychiatry & Allied Sciences, 6(2), p.96.

Owoyele, J. (2009). Relationship between Stress Management Skills and Undergraduate Students’ Academic Achievement in Two Nigerian Universities. African Research Review, 3(3).

Rezazadeh, M. and Tavakoli, M. (2009). Investigating the Relationship among Test Anxiety, Gender, Academic Achievement and Years of Study: A Case of Iranian EFL University Students. English Language Teaching, 2(4).

Yousefi, F., Talib, M., Mansor, M., Juhari, R. and Redzuan, M. (2010). The Relationship between Test-Anxiety and Academic Achievement among Iranian Adolescents. Asian Social Science, 6(5).

 
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