Frieder Schillinger | When students fail: Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying test anxiety

Test anxiety can hinder students from achieving their full potential in tests or examinations. According to distraction theories, performance-related worries impair the working memory of these students. The aim of the present two studies was to investigate this mechanism by combining behavioral measures with electroencephalography (EEG). In the first study, the error-related negativity (ERN) was compared between students with low and high test anxiety. Under performance pressure, the amplitude of the ERN was increased as compared to a control condition. This modulation was stronger for students with high test anxiety, indicating more compensatory effort to maintain task performance. In the second study, we related individual differences in test anxiety to frontal midline theta (FMϴ) during a high-stake mathematics test. FMϴ was higher under performance pressure and linearly increased with the level of test anxiety, suggesting higher working memory costs. In both studies, self- reported worries during the test were directly related to task performance but not to the EEG measures. The present studies reveal the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying test anxiety and support distraction theories of performance decrements.