Scaffolding Strategies for Reducing Test Anxiety

Abstract

One of the most common feelings associated with taking exams is anxiety, which can have a debilitating effect on students’ performance. The present study attempts to investigate levels of test anxiety, the most test-anxiety-provoking factors as well as the relationships holding between test anxiety and foreign language anxiety, foreign classroom language anxiety, gender, age and general proficiency. Second year students’ opinions about the effectiveness of some suggested scaffolding strategies in reducing their test anxiety are also probed. A test consisting of 49 questions was adapted to 89 second-year students, at the department of English, University of Mohammed Seddik Ben Yahia, Jijel. The results indicated that secondyear students experience a high normal level of test anxiety, mainly because of exam time limits. As for personality and proficiency characteristics, it was found that female students experienced moderately hightest anxiety relatively higher than male students identifying with normal high test anxiety, whereas age and proficiency are somewhat related to test anxiety, with older students feeling less anxious and low ability students experiencing the highest level of test anxiety.Additionally, it was established that students reported slightly more anxiety in exams than in foreign language classrooms which, in turn, is higher than that of foreign language anxiety. When test anxiety is supposedly scaffolded, normal to very low levels of anxiety resulted, especially if teachers show student which particular items are to be included testing. These results, which point to the rather high levels of test anxiety and the positive roleof scaffolding in relievingit, can be of much help, and have to be applied in the field to measure their efficacy so as to reassure students.