Goal Clarification and Process Feedback Matter: Reducing Test Anxiety in Low-Stakes Testing

Test anxiety can undermine student achievement and self-esteem, even with low-stakes tests designed to support learning. While previous research mainly focused on individual factors, an important question was whether aspects of the social context - how teachers interact with students about tests - can also reduce test anxiety. Grounded in assessment for learning and self-determination theory, this study investigated if goal clarification and process feedback - core instructional strategies in low-stakes contexts - relate to lower test anxiety via need satisfaction and need frustration. A pretest-posttest field study was conducted with 237 secondary school students. Two to five days before their low-stakes test, a pre-questionnaire measured students' baseline test anxiety, need-based experiences, and perceptions of goal clarification and process feedback. The post-questionnaire, completed immediately after the test, assessed students' experienced test anxiety. Multilevel analyses revealed that students who perceived more goal clarification and process feedback reported lower test anxiety, after accounting for baseline test anxiety and gender. Greater need satisfaction, but not lower need frustration, mediated these student-level relations. Moreover, classroom-level process feedback predicted decreased test anxiety. These findings suggest that providing more clarity on learning goals and more process feedback can alleviate test anxiety in low-stakes contexts, offering insights for targeted interventions.