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UNDERSTANDING MOTIVATION 71embarrassment, which often leads to an increase of effort the next
time. Emotions or feelings will change if attributions are changed.
Therefore, individuals should carefully consider all the possible rea-
sons for their performance before they draw any conclusions, espe-
cially when they do not perform as well as they expected. Most impor-
tant, they should consider other causes besides lack of ability,
especially effort.How Do I Feel About Academic Demands? Anxiety can negatively impact
academic performance in many ways. Ottens (1991) identified four
interrelated characteristics of academically anxious students:- Disruption in mental activity
- Psychological distress
- Misdirected attention
- Inappropriate behaviors, of which procrastination is most
common
Recent research has focused on the relative independence of two
dimensions of test anxiety: worry versus emotionality. Worry is the
major factor in the disruption of mental activity, whereas emotional-
ity is more related to physiological distress. Worry reflects the cogni-
tive aspects of anxiety—the negative beliefs, troubling thoughts, and
poor decisions. Emotionality refers to the unpleasant affective reac-
tions, such as tension and nervousness. Each of these dimensions can
have differential effects on students. Although both dimensions can
have a debilitating effect, the worry dimension has a stronger nega-
tive relation to academic performance than the emotional dimension.
One reason for this finding is that emotionality tends to decrease once
test taking begins, whereas worrisome thoughts often continue
throughout the test and may be experienced for a period of time in
advance of the examination. Also, achievement suffers because atten-
tion is affected during test taking, when the task requires remember-
ing or retrieving what was learned.
Covington (1992) has proposed a useful interaction model of test
anxiety, where he shows the effects of anxiety at three stages—
appraisal, preparation, and test taking. Students’ motivation to suc-
ceed or avoid failure is determined in the test appraisal stage by
whether they judge the upcoming test to be a challenge or a threat.
In the test preparation stage, students begin studying while thinking
about such things as their ability, expectations, and the futility and
effectiveness of their study. They start thinking such thoughts as: “Will
I do well on the exam?” or “Will it be worthwhile to spend a great
deal of time studying?” Students threatened by failure may become
involved in avoidance behaviors such as irrational goal setting (e.g.,