Test anxiety: Is it associated with performance in high-stakes examinations?
Open accessAbstract
A long-established literature has found that anxiety about testing is negatively related to academic achievement. Yet there remains some debate as to whether this is simply due to less academically able pupils being more likely to develop education-related anxiety issues. This paper presents new evidence on this matter, focusing upon how test anxiety – as measured by five questions included in the PISA 2015 survey – is related to the grades 15/16-year-olds achieve in England’s high-stakes GCSE examinations. I find little evidence that teenagers with low or high levels of test anxiety achieve lower GCSE grades than pupils with average levels of test anxiety. Thus, in contrast to much of the existing literature, no clear relationship between test anxiety and examination performance is found.
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For other students, anxiety can have serious consequences on assessment outcomes due to worry, procrastination and an inability to concentrate.
“For other students, anxiety can have serious consequences on assessment outcomes due to worry, procrastination and an inability to concentrate (Jerrim, 2023).”
From Replacing Traditional Written Laboratory Reports with Interactive Oral Assessments: Enhancing Laboratory Skill Assessment in Undergraduate Genetics Education (2026) · cites this paper as Jerrim, 2023
The available passages from the Results and Conclusions contain only section headings, not findings. Searches for procrastination and for anxiety-related effects on examination performance returned no substantive passage addressing the claimed consequences or mechanisms, so our copy cannot verify the sentence. (LLM, conf=0.72)
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Cites
Correlates, Causes, Effects, and Treatment of Test Anxiety
Hembree, R. (1988) · Review of Educational Research · doi:10.3102/00346543058001047 · Cited by 1,723 · see citing works
Cognitive test anxiety and academic performance
Cassady, J. C., & Johnson, R. E. (2002) · Contemporary Educational Psychology · doi:10.1006/ceps.2001.1094 · Cited by 1,315 · see citing works
Test anxiety effects, predictors, and correlates: A 30-year meta-analytic review
von der Embse, N., Jester, D., Roy, D., & Post, J. (2018) · Journal of Affective Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.jad.2017.11.048 · Cited by 691 · cited 8× · see citing works
“Indeed, a wide-ranging literature has noted how there is a negative correlation between test anxiety and test performance, with those individuals who are less worried tending to achieve higher school grades than their more anxious peers (Von der Embse et al., 2018).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialTest anxiety prevalence and gender differences in a sample of English secondary school students
Putwain, D., & Daly, A. L. (2014) · Educational Studies · doi:10.1080/03055698.2014.953914 · Cited by 263 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Although this is a complex area, the stress and anxiety induced by high-stakes assessment is thought by many to be a significant problem amongst teenagers in England (Putwain & Daly, 2014).”
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Della Vedova, C. B., Birbeck, D., & Davey, S. K. (2026) · Research in Science Education · doi:10.1007/s11165-026-10380-3
- Authors
- Jerrim, J.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Jerrim, John
- ORCID
- Jerrim, John
- Venue
- Oxford Review of Education
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2022-06-14
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 321-341
- ISSN
- 0305-4985 (ISSN-L)
- 1465-3915
- OpenAlex
- W4282925035
- Cited by
- 60
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 6
- FWCI
- 9.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Oxford Review of Education (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/T003677/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Student Stress and Coping
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Keywords
- test anxiety, exam performance, high-stakes examinations, GCSE, academic performance, PISA 2015, adolescents, academic anxiety, achievement gap
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