Examining Feelings of Anxiety Experienced by Secondary Students in L2 Evaluative Situations

Abstract

[eng] The main purpose of this study is to examine the potential impact of test anxiety on L2 academic achievement. The sample size consisted of eighty-five students from ten different state secondary schools in Mallorca. Data were collected by using the Spanish version of the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale. Results show that participants suffer from moderate and high test anxiety levels, regardless of their academic English proficiency. The findings reveal a significant effect of participants' self-reported English proficiency on both, general test anxiety, and test anxiety directly related to a high-stakes English test (SUEE), suggesting that self-perception of proficiency is a greater predictor of test anxiety than actual academic grades. Additionally, a significant relationship between gender and self-reported test anxiety on the high-stakes English test was found, which indicates that females tend to perceive certain exam situations as more personally threatening than males. By contrary, school setting (urban vs. suburban) was not directly related to test anxiety. Keywords: cognitive test anxiety; academic achievement; English as an L2; Spanish upper secondary students; high-stakes tests.