The control-anxiety-performance relationship : self-report and physiological measures

Abstract

Although theoretically anxiety constitutes of multiple components (e.g., cognitive, affective, motivational, and physiological components), previous empirical studieslargely neglected to examine them separately. Thus, it remains unclear whether all of the anxiety components are equally important when looking at the connection of control and performance mediated by anxiety - as proposed by Pekrun’s highly acknowledged control-value theory (CVT).Furthermore, most research on anxiety in educational psychology relies on self-report measures which can be biased in certain ways (e.g., by memory effects or subjective beliefs). Therefore, this intra-individual study investigated the different anxiety components in the framework of the CVT in a sample of N = 50 German 8th graders and had the goal to identify the component that is most important in the mechanism that connects control and performance and should therefore be central in anxiety interventionsin order to increase students’ performance. In addition to self-reports, the physiological anxiety component was examined with physiological measures (i.e., skin conductance; SC assessed with Empatica E4 wristbands) to provide an objective assessment. All study variables (i.e., control, anxiety components, SC, and performance) were collected at multiple times during a mathematics test. Results showed that the cognitive anxiety component seems to be central for student’s performance and consequently suggest that it is important to distinguish between the components. Additionally, we found a positive relationship between control and SC, which will be discussed in more detail.