Personality Types, Test Anxiety and Test Performance: Personality and Gender Comparison

This paper examined the causes of test anxiety and how it can impair test performance. It found out the relationship between personality types, and gender with the test anxiety. The research questions were about the causes and facilitating personality traits of test anxiety, how it can impair students’ performance, gender difference, high achievers and low achievers’ differences in experiencing test anxiety, and what techniques can be used to reduce test anxiety. Four system Anxiety Questionnaire and The Personality Type A/B questionnaire with a demographic sheet were used, 300 students 150 males and 150 females from 18 to 30 years of age were conveniently selected in this study. Repeated Measure Research design was used, and three apparent assumptions were made i.e. Type A personality will be more vulnerable to Test Anxiety, there will be a negative relationship between test anxiety and test performance and Females will face more test anxiety before exams as compared to males. Results supported the hypotheses -0.86 r showed a strong negative correlation between anxiety and performance and a significant difference found out by t-test in terms of personality type and gender. For reducing test anxiety healthy family environment, parental education, counseling, positive attitude toward themselves, relaxation techniques, well-managed behavioral patterns and good study habits are very helpful.