CLUSTERING OF POSTGRADUATE STUDENT’S COGNITIVE TEST ANXIETY (CTA)

In psychology, anxiety is one of the most common phenomena that has long been studied. Cognitive Test Anxiety is the term used to describe the emotional and psychological reactions people have when they are about to take an exam or test. The objective of this study is to identify the cluster using research variables-gender, stream, residence and CTA (Cognitive Test Anxiety) for assessing predictor significance in cluster formation. To achieve those objectives the researcher used a descriptive survey approach and took 363 arts and science postgraduate students from Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University as sample. As a statistical technique, the researcher has used a two-step clustering approach to classify the entire sample into distinct clusters. Variables such as residence, gender and stream were identified as contributors to distinct clusters and their influence on CTA. The study’s conclusions showed that as the clusters grow, from 2 to 10 clusters the residence, gender, stream and CTA as predictors become highly significant. Therefore, it can be opined that change of predictors with respect to residence and gender are very high, stream is mediocre, and CTA is low for small clusters but becomes high for large number of clusters.