Assessment and Analysis of Examination Anxiety Pattern and Its Impact on Public Senior Secondary School Students in Delta State, Nigeria.

Joseph Obiajuru, Nwajei Martha Chioma

Abstract


The purpose of this study is to assess and analyze examination anxiety patterns and their impact on public senior secondary school students in Delta State, Nigeria. This study adopted a descriptive research design. The population of this study was 40522 students from public senior secondary schools in Delta State during the 2023/2024 academic session. The sample size of 1069 was used in this study using a multi-stage sampling technique. The instrument of this study was a questionnaire, titled Examination Anxiety Scale (EAS) adopted from Joseph et al. (2023). The instrument was validated through expert judgment. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the collected data. Findings revealed that both male and female students experience examination anxiety across all components of Behavioural Symptoms, Cognitive Symptoms, Emotional Symptoms, and Physiological Symptoms. However small differences exist between male and female students. It also revealed that rural students generally reported higher physiological and emotional symptoms of examination anxiety compared to urban students. However, the cognitive symptoms of anxiety were quite similar between urban and rural students. The study recommends that Schools should implement anxiety management programmes that cater to both male and female students, acknowledging the differences in how each gender experiences anxiety. 


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