Performing Arts High School Attendance Impact on the Average Amount of Academic Anxiety Experienced

In this field of psychology and art, there are countless research papers done on the positive impact that music and all the other art forms have on the anxiety of schools of all ages. However, this may not always be the case as there have been studies comparing the mental strains of art major college students and non-art major college students, showing considerably more strain and stress for art major students. Concerningly, there has been limited research on the academic anxiety of performing arts students when compared to conventional students. Therefore, this study sampled 60 high school students from different high schools across Orange County, either a performing arts high school or a conventional high school, and aimed to find how the level of academic anxiety changed depending on whether attending a performing arts high school affected them while taking into account the potentially confounding variables of home environments, personal goals, and academic intensity. Data for this survey was collected in a three-part survey that utilized the Academic Anxiety Scale and through the usage of a Mann-Whitney U Test. It was found that there was a statistically significant correlation between the average amount of academic anxiety that a high school student faced and the type of school that they attended. It was also found through a two-tailed t-test that many of the confounding variables listed above did not vary significantly between the two types of high schools. Limitations and implications are also discussed further.