Test Anxiety Case Study

University Of Balamand

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Education Department

FASS 300: Research Methodology

Research Proposal

Maria Al Merheby

“The Exam Preparation Styles of Brevet Students and Test Anxiety:

A Case Study in a Lebanese Private School”

I. Introduction:

Statement of the problem:

I am interested in studying how Lebanese students in private schools prepare for their brevet because studies have shown that from the day they enter school until they graduate, students are being exposed to very high numbers of exams and evaluations, and although some students are able to deal with such situations with acceptable amount of nervousness, others seem to be unable to cope with exams’ stress and experience different levels of anxiety,

Thus, having deficits in the organizational level of exams preparation leaves the students unable to properly process the information for recall because of high stress levels showing through the testing situation (Mealey, 1992).

In addition, the negative self-talk referred to cognitive anxiety is another major cause for test anxiety because those who focus on their past failures instead of success tend to have very low self-confidence and poor self-esteem of their inner capabilities (Huberty, 2010). Thus, such negative inner speech used by pupils like “I will fail the course” and “I cannot do it” produces an attitude of “learned helplessness” (Dweck, 1975) which means that pupils who did bad on past exams focus on their fears and inadequacies, and become distracted whenever they were subjected to different situations of assessment even if they have mastered the subject

In fact, such kind of parents keep on advising their children to spend much more time on studying in order to attain the best marks in school. Therefore, excessive pressure maximizes test anxiety, and leads to an imapired academic performance and motivation of a school teenager.

Symptoms of Test Anxiety:

The symptoms of test anxiety are divided into two categories: physical symptoms which include the acceleration of heart beats, dizziness, and frequent urination, and behavioral symptoms which include asking dull questions during the test, complaining about different sections of the exam, and never attending on an exam day (Salend S. J., 2011).

Therefore, test anxiety has been proved to negatively impact the academic performance of pupils especially in the domains that use to test cognitive and intellectual abilities due to the fact that test-anxious students might feel distracted and unable to process the required information, which hinders their achievements (Zeidner,