Anxiety and Classroom Performance

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Abstract
This paper reports the dimensions found in the responses of a sample of Sydney fifth grade children to an omnibus anxiety questionnaire. It also reports the correlation of full-scale and factorial dimensional measures of anxiety with performance on a battery of standardized academic achievement tests. For both sexes factors that referred to anxiety responses in specific situations in the classroom were found, with test and recitation situations being the most salient. Factors were also found that referred, inter alia, to trait-like feelings of lack of confidence and self-doubt, to anxiety in dreams, and to anxiety generally about classroom performance. Sex differences were clearly observed with regard to the nature and item composition of obtained factors although some similarities across sex were apparent. The correlational analyses generally produced higher negative correlations between anxiety and performance for girls than for boys; and factorial measures of lack of confidence (for both girls and boys) and generalized anxiety about performance in class (for girls only) consistently showed stronger negative correlations with performance than did other full-scale or factorial measures.

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