Anxiety and academic performance: A meta-analysis of findings

Abstract The strength of the relationship between anxiety and performance varies from study to study with correlations from extreme negative to positive values. In order to reveal the sources of this inconsistency, a series of meta-analyses was conducted using the Schmidt-Hunter algorithm for effect sizes r. One hundred and twenty-six studies published from 1975 to 1988, based on a total sample of 36,626 subjects, were located after a comprehensive literature search. They include 156 independent samples. An overall analysis with the 156 effect sizes yielded a population effect size of r = −.21. Further analyses aimed at exploring moderator variables that would account for the residual variance, but tests of gender, culture (USA, West Germany and others), and anxiety stability (state/trait) failed to unveil the expected moderator impact. However, analyses with the anxiety components worry and emotionality, kinds of anxiety such as general and test anxiety, and the anxiety measurement point in time yielded systematic differences: the more cognitively determined and the more specific the anxiety measure, the closer was its association with academic performance. A closer relationship was also found if anxiety was measured after the performance situation compared to being measured before.