A Study On Senior High School Students' English Test Anxiety And Its Related Variables

The study is designed to study the status quo of English test anxiety among senior high school students, to find the impact of such variables as school type, grade, gender and English achievement on senior high school students' English test anxiety and the correlation between them. The main cause of the test anxiety and the test contents that tend to arouse high level test anxiety are also the focus of the research. In the study a total of 799 subjects from three Chinese senior high schools, a key senior high school, a senior high school in city and a senior high school in rural area, were assessed by the means of TAS (in Chinese version) after their mid-examinations.The results show that 45.9 per cent of the subjects had test anxiety when taking the English test and 19.3 per cent had high test anxiety. English test anxiety check-out rates of key senior high school, senior high school in city, senior high school in rural area were 36.6%, 46.2% and 54.6% respectively, which revealed significant differences among them. English test anxiety check-out rates of students in grade 1, grade 2 and grade 3 were 51.4%, 46.7% and 39.8% respectively, with significant differences. Distinct differences in test anxiety were also detected in the high, middle, low score groups', whose rates were 30.6%, 47.3% and 59.1% respectively. But no significant difference between boys and girls in test anxiety was found, whose check-out rates were 44.3% and 47.4%. There was a negative correlation between test anxiety and school type, grades and English proficiency. However, no significant relationship between test anxiety and gender was established on the basis of the study. Where the test content was concerned, test anxiety mostly came from error correction and cloze test. Worrying about the failure in tests that might affect others' estimate of themselves was the main cause of students' test anxiety.The research suggests that it is necessary for parents and teachers to pay more attention to the English test anxiety among senior high school students. They should help students have a good knowledge of test anxiety, adjust emotion and overcome English test anxiety as well,...