Test Anxiety, Self-Control, and Knowledge Retrieval in Secondary School Students

The relationship between anxiety and performance has been found to depend on momentary self-control strength. In a sample of secondary school students (N = 136), we examined whether this finding can be generalized to knowledge retrieval. First, participants' test anxiety was assessed and their self-control strength was experimentally manipulated, and then they completed a standardized vocabulary test as a measure of knowledge retrieval. While knowledge retrieval was not a function of test anxiety or self-control strength, the interaction of both variables predicted the knowledge demonstrated. In line with previous research, students with low self-control strength performed worse the more test anxious they were. In contrast, anxiety was unrelated to vocabulary performance in students with high self-control strength. We interpret this pattern such that test anxiety only hampers knowledge retrieval when self-control cannot be used to compensate for anxiety-related attentional deficits. This finding suggests that thorough preparation does not guarantee good test grades.