An Explanatory Model of Test Anxiety: Psychological Resilience, Abuse, and Neglect

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between middle school students' test anxiety and their psychological resilience, neglect, and abuse experiences based on a model. Under this main objective, the sub-objectives of the study include determining the relationship between the nature of test anxiety and childhood experiences, identifying the mediating characteristics of psychological resilience in reducing the impact of childhood traumas, and examining the effect of psychological resilience on test anxiety. The study, which used the correlational survey model, was conducted with 433 middle school students. The Westside Test Anxiety Scale, the Resiliency Scale for Children and Adolescents, and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire were employed as data collection tools in the study. The AMOS software package was used for the analysis of the hypothesis test model, and the relationships between variables were examined with path analysis. As a result of the study, the goodness of fit coefficients of the conceptual model analyzed indicated that the model was valid. Emotional neglect and emotional abuse, which are sub-dimensions of the trauma scale, were significant and negative predictors of psychological resilience. In addition, the results of the bootstrap analysis showed that psychological resilience had a full mediating role in the relationship between test anxiety and emotional abuse and neglect. According to the findings of the study, it was concluded that emotional abuse and neglect, which are the sub-dimensions of childhood trauma, were factors that negatively affected the psychological resilience of students and that the high psychological resilience levels of the students reduced test anxiety. Also, psychological resilience was found to be an important mediator in reducing the effect of the consequences of childhood trauma on test anxiety.

Keywords

• Abuse
• Neglect
• Psychological resilience
• Test Anxiety

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