Attentional Bias, Study Time, and Test Performance in Test-Anxious College
Students
Erin Skinner, PhD, Lindsay Alley, Vincent Quenneville, & Sara Ryan
Department of Psychology, Langara College

• Many college students report experiencing high
levels of test anxiety, and this is associated with
decreased academic performance (Hembree, 1988).
• Theories suggest that a failure of attention is one
component underlying this relationship; for
example, test-anxious students may attend to
thoughts of worry during examinations, disrupting
cognitive processing (Eysenck et al., 2007).
• This suggests that test-anxious students will be
more likely to attend to test-related stimuli, but few
studies have tested this hypothesis.
• One method used to look at attentional biases is
the Attentional Blink paradigm. Most participants
fail to notice a target item (or show a “blink in
attention”) if the stimulus is presented less than
500ms after a previous target unless the stimulus is
highly arousing or personal (Romens et al., 2011).
• Hypothesis: High test-anxious students will be
more likely to identify test-related words presented
shortly after a neutral target than low test-anxious
students.

METHODS CONTINUED
Attentional Blink Task:
• Participants completed three blocks of 40 trials. In
each trial, participants viewed a rapid presentation
of 15 words on a laptop computer. 32 trials
contained two targets presented in green (T1 and
T2); 8 trials had only one target. Participants were
asked to indicate if they saw a second target word,
and if so, to state the word orally. T1 was always a
neutral word. Across blocks, T2 was either a neutral
(e.g., agile), anxiety-related (e.g., nervous), or testrelated (e.g., exam) word.
• The anxiety- and test-related word lists were equated
on valence and arousal, and all lists were equated on
letter count.
Fig. 1. Schematic of one trial.

chant
50 ms

pause
T1
–
neutral
word
middle

low
solid

METHODS

flunk

T2 at position 2-5
behind T1 – neutral,
anxiety-related, or
test-related word

back
glance

REFERENCES

• Analysis across participants showed no main effect
of word type, a main effect of position, F(3, 264) =
31.59, p < .001, and no interaction
8
7.5
7
6.5
Neutral

6
2

3

Anxiety

4

Test

5

Position of T2

• Analyses also showed an interaction between word
type and TAI total score, F(6, 170) = 2.69, p < .05;
however, post-hoc tests did not reveal significant
differences between groups.
• Analyses show trends towards variation in word
identification with self-reported measures of “going
blank” on tests.

• Participants in the highest quartile of the TAI,
indicating high test anxiety, reported studying more
hours per class each week (M = 1.95) than those in
the lowest quartile (M = 1.28), t(40) = 2.08, p < .05.

transmit

• This may be particularly true of those students who
report going ‘blank’ on examinations.

• Participants: 91 Langara College students (62
Female) between the ages of 18 – 40, were recruited
from psychology classes on campus.
• Procedure: After obtaining informed consent,
participants were asked to complete the digit-span
task, followed by the attentional blink task.
Participants then completed the Test Anxiety
Inventory (Spielberger, 1980), a questionnaire, the
National Adult Reading Test – Revised, and then
debriefed.

RESULTS

Mean Words Recognized

INTRODUCTION

CONCLUSIONS
• Results do not suggest that students high in testanxiety show an attentional bias to test-related
material.
• It is still possible a bias occurs in test situations.
• Future studies should explore attention and memory in
relation to the experience of ‘going blank’ on tests.

• Students who experience high test anxiety may
increase study time to help manage their anxiety.

• Eysenck, M. W., Santos, R., Derekshan, N., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional Control
Theory. Emotion, 7(2), 336–352.
• Hembree, R. (1988). Correlates, causes, effects, and treatment of test anxiety. Review Of Educational Research, 58(1).
• Romens, S. E., MacCoon, D. G., Abramson, L. Y., & Pollak, S. D. (2011). Cognitive style moderates attention to attributionrelevant stimuli. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 35(2), 134-141.
• Spielberger, C. D. (1980). Test Anxiety Inventory: Preliminary Professional Manual. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.