AN IMPLICIT ANALYSIS OF THE PREVALENCE OF TEST ANXIETY AMONG PRESERVICE TEACHERS

Abstract

This unique study, which was carried out in an area that seemed under researched, explored the relationship between the sources and manifestations of anxiety and the general test anxiety among preservice teachers. Data was collected from 100 female preservice teachers in a college of education in Ghana by using an adapted version of the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) developed by Spielberger and Vagg. A key finding is that external factors such how others (e.g. parents and tutors) perceive preservice teachers when they perform poorly tend to be the major source of trainees’ test anxiety. This brings to bare the sources of general test anxiety among preservice teachers in the study, which is an illumination on what literature seems to suggest that students who experience test anxiety tend to be the type of people who put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform well. The findings suggest that the status of the test and how high the stakes are for a test the more likely that preservice teachers will experience increased test anxiety.