The impact of cognitive test anxiety on text comprehension and recall in the absence of external evaluative pressure

Two studies examined the effects of cognitive test anxiety on students' memory, comprehension, and understanding of expository text passages in situations without externally-imposed evaluative pressure. The results gathered through structural equations modelling demonstrated a significant impact of cognitive test anxiety on performance in conditions with and without external evaluative pressure. The impact of cognitive test anxiety was stronger in those conditions with external evaluative pressure. The results are interpreted to support processing models of test anxiety that propose test anxiety interferes with learning through deficiencies in encoding, organization, and storage in addition to the classic interpretation of retrieval failures. In addition, the data provide support for additive models of test anxiety that address both stable and situational factors in the overall impact of cognitive test anxiety on performance. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.