The Effect of Time Constraints and Statistics Test Anxiety on Test Performance in a Statistics Course

Abstract The performance of students who completed a statistics examination under time limits was compared with that of students under no time limits. Another purpose of the study was to determine whether students high or low in statistics test anxiety were affected differentially by these two examination conditions. Twenty-six graduate students who were enrolled in an intermediate-level statistics course were randomly assigned to the two examination groups, timed or untimed. Both low- and high-anxious students performed better on the final course examination under the untimed condition than under the timed condition. However, the benefit of the untimed examination was greater for high-anxious students than for low-anxious students. The results were interpreted using Hill's (1984) and Wine's (1980) conceptual frameworks. The results suggest that differences between high- and low-anxious students in evaluative situations are caused by differences between them in motivational disposition and attentional focus.