Test Anxiety Research (2014–2024) A Keyword Co-occurrence Analysis with Implications for Educational Practice

Test anxiety not only plays a significant role in shaping students’ academic performance and mental health but also brings forth new challenges for the design and implementation of educational interventions. This study employs keyword co-occurrence network analysis to systematically explore core themes and development trends of test anxiety from 2014 to 2024. Based on 1,620 articles retrieved from the Scopus database, VOSviewer software was employed to analyze the clustering structure of author-keywords and index-keywords. The study finds that research on test anxiety has primarily focused on areas such as academic performance, gender differences, self-efficacy, psychological intervention, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent years, the scope of research in this field has expanded to include self-regulated learning, subject-specific anxiety, and mental health issues among high-pressure populations, aligning closely with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of “quality education” and “good health and well-being”. This field research shows a trend of cross-integration among disciplines such as psychology, education, medicine, and neuroscience. However, cross-cultural comparisons, long-term mechanisms, and the neurophysiological basis of test anxiety have not received sufficient attention. Future research urgently needs to adopt a cross-cultural perspective, explore individualized intervention pathways, and further uncover the neural mechanisms of test anxiety to better respond to the urgent need to improve education quality and promote mental health globally.