Success and failure experiences and the factor structure of the state-trait anxiety inventory

Abstract Factor analyses of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) have yielded factors referring to A-Trait, A-State and A-State reversed items. If reversed item factors occur commonly, the interaction between treatment situations and the factorial components of STAI scores might lead to confusion in the interpretation of total scale scores. The STAI was pretested on 277 female and 103 male students who were then randomly assigned to experimental conditions of success or failure. They were posttested on the A-State scale. Factor analyses of the intercorrelations among pretest and posttest items within each treatment revealed three factors denned by A-Trait, A-State nonreversed and A-State reversed items. This result was interpreted as indicating two orthogonal dimensions in the A-State scale.