How do impostor feelings and general self-efficacy co-explain students' test-anxiety and academic achievements: The preceding role of maternal psychological control

This exploratory study aims to reveal how impostor feelings and general self-efficacy co-explain students' test-anxiety and academic achievements, while testing the possible preceding effect of maternal psychological control using the students' recollections of their mothers. The study's sample comprised 142 students at several academic institutions in Israel, whose age ranges from 20 to 52 (M-age = 27.53, SD = 5.61). The results of a path model testing the direct and indirect associations between these variables yielded three main findings: First, students' impostor feelings and self-efficacy were inversely intercorrelated, while, when taken together, only the former was uniquely associated with test-anxiety (i.e., in a positive direction). This finding is among the first that empirically confirms the association between the two phenomena in students. The association between self-efficacy and test-anxiety was fully mediated by the students' impostor feelings. Second, maternal psychological control was negatively and positively associated with the students' self-efficacy and impostor feelings (respectively). The latter, in turn, significantly mediated the maternal effect on the students' test-anxiety. Finally, test-anxiety and self-efficacy were inversely related to the students' academic achievements (i.e., in opposite directions). Test-anxiety fully mediated the negative association between the students' impostor feelings and their academic achievements. The importance and novelty of the findings are discussed in light of the background literature, while specifying the directions for further research.