CHAPTER 2

There are basically four main areas which can contribute to cause pre examination stress
or anxiety. The first one is lifestyle Issues, which includes inadequate rest, poor nutrition and lack
of efficient planning of the available time. If a student does not schedule the available time, he/she
will not be able to cover the syllabus content at time resulting in stress. Even if he/she completes
reading of full content and no time is left for revision, he/she may get confuse of one content with
other resulting in a situation where the student feel as if he knows nothing or forgotten everything.
So distributing the limited time by prioritizing your commitments can help in coping up with the
stress. The second important thing to avoid stress before examination is to have few necessary
information like examination dates, venue of examination, course content to be covered, paper
required to sit in examination before in hand. Lack of any above mentioned information can cause
stress before examination. Many students follow style of studying which lead to stress such as
trying to memorize the content of textbooks, all night studying before exams, inefficient and
inconsistent content coverage, not making revision notes. Besides these factors there are some
psychological factors before examination may lead to examination stress or anxiety. Few students
suffer from irrational beliefs or demands such as: “If I don’t get a good score, I will lose my respect
or I will be worthless”. Some students undergoes through catastrophic predictions like: “I will fail
no matter how much hard work I do”.

Stress and anxiety experienced during the examinations is often attributed to the fear of
failure and can have lasting negative impacts on the self-esteem of the student. Examination
anxiety has been reported to produce debilitating cognitive effects including difficulties with
memory and recalling information. There is a significant positive relation found between
achievement motivation and academic achievement and a negative relationship between anxiety
and academic achievement (Alam, 2001). (Hartmann, 2014) stated, “anxiety is a subjective state
of fear, apprehension, or tension” which “in the face of a naturally fearful or threatening situation;
anxiety is a normal and understandable reaction”. Anxiety is quite frequently seen in classes where
students face problems throughout their learning process (Casado & Dereshiwsky, 2004; Kim,
2009; Marcos-Llinas & Garau, 2009; Sparks & Ganschow, 2007). Anxiety affected students’
performances and made them fall behind in class. For students, study anxiety becomes a real
phenomenon; the sources of anxiety and its control reflect the importance. (Sizoo, Jozkowskia,
Malhotra, and Shapero (2008)
LOCAL

In science, laboratory activity is an integral and distinctive component of the inquiry-based

teaching and learning (Hofstein & Lunetta, 2002). Learning what to do and how to do the different
science protocols, be it basic or advanced, is one of the important learning goals in modern science
education. It is expected that students will acquire laboratory skills and use these skills to learn
and re-learn science knowledge. Several studies have been conducted to determine the importance
of laboratory activities in science achievement. According to (Wong, 2008), laboratory inquiry
was linked with higher achievement among students at different demographic profiles. (Campbell,
Kaunda, Allie, Buffler, and Lubben, 2000) observed that students get high test scores when they
were focused on science concepts and laboratory procedures. (Ogunniyi, 2006) found that
cooperative group rendered significantly superior rating on the achievement measure. (Al-Naqbi
and Tairab, 2005) asserted significantly positive association of active engagement and
participation in laboratory activities to acquisition of knowledge, process skills, and scientific
attitudes. (Dahlstrand and Coster.2011) also inferred positive causal relationship between level of
participation and acquisition of science process skills. Particularly in biology, (Yara, 2009) showed
that active participation in hands-on activities positively enhanced interest in the subject.

In the Philippines, one way to assess laboratory learning is by moving examination

(practical test). Moving examination is a type of laboratory exam that measures students’ learning
of concepts and application of science laboratory skills by answering several questions in a time-
defined manner. Most of the time, moving examination is conducted in a laboratory where the
teacher prepares several test stations having each station relatively apart from the other. For each
test station, several test questions are given. The questions may measure comprehension of science
concepts or application of laboratory skills. Depending on the number of question and on the level
of difficulty, the teacher give an exact time for each student to answer all the questions for each
station. The moment the time required to complete the task for a single station is complete, students
move to the next station. This exercise is finished when all of the students have already completed
the route of the test stations.

Test and examinations are assessment techniques used in education to evaluate the transfer
of learning. Apparently, results reflect their performance that includes their abilities and skills.
(Ohman, 2000) connoted that anxiety comes from unknown threats which renders hesitation,
uneasiness, and tension. This unknown threat is normally viewed as an unlikely event that
stimulates futuristic thinking, thereby, increases one’s preparedness to cope with it (Barlow, 2002).
When their test scores becomes the basis of important decisions and consequences, students are
more inclined to experience some level of anxiety (Urbina, 2004). Numerous researchers (Basak
& Yesilel, 2012; Michele, 2006) connoted the term test anxiety as a situation-specific personality
trait composed of physiological worry and fear experienced during testing situations that generally
interferes with normal learning and test performance. Udeani (2012) explained that test anxiety
arises from academic or intellectual evaluative situation causing intense anxiety leading to
difficulty in adequately studying for and performing on their examinations. Inverse relationship
between the levels of test anxiety and academic achievement outcome has been demonstrated in
numerous researches. Students having high levels of anxiety have a tendency to deliver decline in
test scores, rendering poor academic performance (Ali & Mohsin, 2013; Burns, 2004; Cassady &
Johnson, 2002; El-Anzi, 2005; Khalid & Hasan, 2009; Udeani, 2012; Vogel & Collins, 2002). The
amount of test anxiety that will be elicited by testing situations such as purpose of the test
(evaluative and developmental); confidence on test performance (effort translated into meeting
acceptable test performance); test format familiarity (amount of prior experience towards test and
item format); and nature of test content (whether the test measures learned skills and natural
abilities) may be determined by intra-individual variables like age, gender, ability, and trait anxiety
(Reeve, Bonnacio, & Charles, 2008).

Testing has always been a part of the education and learning process, and an integral
component of the academic life of students. Testing in school varies in purpose. It can serve as a
screening tool to facilitate student admissions or as a means of gathering useful data for counselor
sand school psychologists. It is also the most common way of determining the amount of
knowledge learned by students over a period of time, and is often the basis of whether to promote
them to the next level or not. Whatever the purpose is, testing is often met with different reactions
and emotions from students, the most common of which is anxiety. From the words of Nicaise (as
cited in Sena, Lowe & Lee, 2007), test anxiety is an individual’s physiological, cognitive, and
behavioral responses that stimulate negative feelings about a test. An individual that is said to be
test-anxious is often inclined to respond to classroom tests, or tests done beyond academic
purposes, with worry, negative thoughts, and tension. In each testing situation, the test-anxious
individual experiences more intense emotionality or physiological hyper-arousal (Sena et al.,
2007), to the extent that physical symptoms, like sweating excessively and breathing rapidly,
become evident as one prepares or takes the test.

A thoughtful inquiry about test anxiety in terms of its possible sources is deemed important
because the experience of anxiety in taking a test can greatly affect the students’ test performance,
and consequently their academic performance in general. As shown in previous studies, test
anxiety is negatively correlated with GPA (Jing, 2007). Similar results were earlier found in the
study by (Chapell et al. 2005), wherein differences in GPA were a function of the level of test
anxiety, with less anxious test takers showing higher GPA than their counterpart who experienced
high anxiety. It was also found that test anxiety is detrimental to performance (McCarthy & Goffin,
2005). Therefore, knowing the factors that can predict test anxiety would aid in the prevention of
this negative experience. Another important factor of test anxiety is the amount of time invested
to studying. Study hours, or the average time per day spent by the student in studying after school
is linked with students’ academic achievement (Brunborg, Pallesen, Diseth, & Larsen, 2010),
because the longer time is spent for studying, the more learning may take place, and thus greater
is the chances of getting a good academic standing. Good academic standing is a result of good
performance from the tests that is made possible because of lower test anxiety, which brings this
present research to a focus on the importance of test anxiety and what may predict.
References:

Al-Naqbi, A. K., & Tairab, H. H. (2005). Practical laboratory work. Journal of Faculty of
Education, 18(22), 33-39.
Ali, M. S., & Mohsin, M. N. (2013). Relationship of test anxiety with students' achievement in
science. International Journal of Educational Science and Research, 3(1), 99-106.
Altmaier,E.M.(1983).Helping students manage stress. San Francisco: Jossey-Boss Inc.
Alam, M.M. (2001). Academic achievement in relation to socioeconomic status, anxiety level and
achievement motivation: A comparative study of muslim and non-muslim school children of Uttar
Basak, D., & Yesilel, I. (2012). Test anxiety in ELT classes. Frontiers of Language and Teaching,
3, 415-422.
Campbell, B., Kaunda, L., Allie, S., Buffler, A., & Lubben, F. (2000). The communication of
laboratory investigations by university entrants. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 37(8),
839-853.
Chapell, M. S., Blanding, Z. B., Silverstein, M. E., Takahashi, M., Newman, B., Gubi, A.,
&McCann, N. (2005). Test anxiety and academic performance in undergraduate and graduate
students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97 (2), 268-274.
Dahlstrand, M. P., & Coster, W. (2011). To get things done, the challenge in everyday life for
children with spina bifida: Quality of performance, autonomy, and participation. University of
Gothenburg, Sweden.
Hofstein, A., & Lunetta, V. (2003). The laboratory in science education: Foundations for the
twenty-first century. Science Education, 88, 28-53.
Ogunniyi, S. (2006) Effects of a discursive course on two science teachers' perceptions of the
nature of science. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology
Education, 10(1), 93-102.
Reeve, C. L., Bonnacio, S., & Charles, J. E. (2008). A policy-capturing study of the contextual
antecedents of test anxiety. Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 243-248.
Yara, P. (2009). Student’s attitude towards mathematics and academic achievement in some
selected secondary schools in South-Western Nigeria. European Journal of Scientific Research,
36(3), 336-341.
IDK kung saang chapter to but I already provided as my part or contribution hihi :> edit nyo nalang
pag mali.

Methodology

This was a small scale exploratory research conducted to analyze the needs of sophomore
students for formulating strategies that would overcome examination anxiety. The study was
conducted using the quantitative descriptive research method. The methodology that was used to
carry out the study included questionnaires as primary data collection tool.

Instrument

The data were collected using the self-administered questionnaires that were distributed to
sophomore students of College of Medical Laboratory Science in Our Lady of Fatima University
Quezon City Campus. The questionnaire was constructed using relevant review and observations
of the researchers that had accumulated during the conduction of the study. The researchers;
therefore, bracketed the observations, which helped to construct a very simple questionnaire,
wherein we first asked for the demographic profile of the respondents and provided questions and
possible choices regarding the measure of their anxiety level during written and practical
examination.

Sample and Sampling Technique

A total sample of (no. of sample) Medical Technology students of Our Lady of Fatima
University Quezon City Campus was selected by using random sampling technique. Random
sampling method was used as restricted to a part of the population that is randomly selected.

Hypothesis

1. There is no significant difference between the anxiousness of students during written

examination and practical examination.
2. There is no significant relationship between perceived examination anxiety among student
of science, arts and commerce.
3. ….