Development and validation of a new coping skills measure for test anxiety among secondary school students

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Type
Thesis
Author
Ng, Jessica Kai Lun
Supervisor
Dutt, Anuradha Salil Kumar
Abstract
Test anxiety is a growing global phenomenon that has serious physical, psychological and academic consequences for students. Given its pervasiveness, several preventive interventions have been developed over the years to equip students with coping strategies to maintain helpful thoughts and to take action to manage the stresses caused by tests. However, there are no specific measures that can evaluate test-taking coping skills that have been developed in the research literature yet. Hence, the current study aims to develop and validate the Test Anxiety Coping Skills (TACSk; pronounced as ‘task’ with ‘c’ silent) measure, and to test its utility as an outcome measure in an established intervention programme. The study recruited 173 secondary two to four students aged between 13 to 17 years old (M = 15 years old, SD = 1.0). Out of the 173 students, 94 students completed the TACSk measure at one timepoint (after intervention) and 79 students completed the TACSk measure at two timepoints (before and after intervention). Reliability and confirmatory factor analyses were run. The results indicate that the 15-item TACSk measure had good psychometric properties, namely a) it yielded good internal reliability estimates and b) it demonstrated adequate fit with a proposed three-factor model. Additionally, the measure was responsive to changes in coping skills after students have gone through the intervention programme. Their TACSk scores showed significant increase after the intervention. Overall, this study addressed a research gap by developing a validated test-taking coping skills measure that may be used by educational and mental health professionals working with adolescent students that express test anxiety. The study also showed support for a cognitive-behavioural-study conceptual framework, whereby test-taking coping is comprised of cognitive coping skills, behavioural affective coping skills, as well as study and exam preparation skills. Going forward, this framework may serve as a guide for practitioners to develop test anxiety coping skills interventions in schools. Limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed
Date Issued
2023
Call Number
LB3060.6 Ng