Student Worries in the Upper Elementary Classroom (Test Anxiety, Affective Outcomes).

This study examined classroom worry as one important component of school anxiety. It considered aspects of classroom which arouse worry, individual factors which predict worry, and the relationships between worry and classroom behavior. 246 fourth- and fifth-graders responded to an experimenter designed questionnaire concerning the frequency and intensity of classroom worries, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children, and an adapted form of the Classroom Environment Scale. Teachers rated children on achievement, conduct, work behavior, sociability, and maturity. Based on a factor analysis of the responses to the worry questionnaire, five scales were constructed reflecting worries about negative evaluation of written work, negative public/comparable evaluation, comprehending assignments, the teacher, and peers. Findings indicated that the frequency of worries depended on event prevalence and that worry intensity was greatest for concerns about evaluation and peers. Results from multiple regression analyses indicated that together, sex, achievement, and trait anxiety significantly predicted all five types of worry. More frequent and intense worries about the teacher and the evaluation of written work were found in classrooms with higher student involvement, greater peer affiliation, less competition, and stricter rules, perhaps because children were more affectively engaged under these conditions. Worries about the teacher, the evaluation of written work, and comprehension were negatively related to children's work behavior, conduct, and maturity. Worries about peers positively predicted sociability. Findings were interpreted to suggest that children experience several types of important school worries apart from concerns about evaluation, that aspects of the classroom environment serve to heighten only some of these kinds of concern, and that discrete worries are related to different classroom behaviors. It was recommended that measures of specific worries be utilized in place of more global anxiety instruments to more precisely assess children's school experience. Finally, it was concluded that worries should not be viewed as entirely negative as they may reflect student involvement in positive classroom activities.Ph.D.Educational psychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/160830/1/8600492.pd