Compare the Perceived Level of Test Anxiety between Novice and Final Year Undergraduate Nursing Students

Background: Feeling nervous about exams is a normal feeling among college students. Test anxiety is a feeling of agitation and distress associated with test taking, which impacts the student’s ability to study or perform on the test. Students who are likely to have test anxiety are high-achieving students and unprepared students. This study aimed to assess the perceived level of test anxiety among undergraduate Nursing students and to find out the strategies used by the students to overcome the test anxiety.

Methodology: Comparative study with 180 undergraduate Nursing students aged between 18 to 23 years. There were 90 respondents in each group. The tool used to assess test anxiety was the west side test anxiety scale. Purposive sampling techniques were used.
 
Analysis and Results: In total there were 180 participants. They were a group with 90 participants. Among them 42% were boys and 58% were girls. In the novice students group, 43% were boys and 57% were girls. On the other hand, 41% were boys and 59 % were girls in Final year nursing students. 72.2% of novice students experience High normal to extremely high test anxiety. Surprisingly 77% of the final students had experienced High normal to extremely high test anxiety. To compare the groups, a t-test was used with a mean anxiety value. This was done at a 0.05 level and the P values (0.2315) show that there is no difference in the anxiety level between novice students and final-year students. Surprisingly the test anxiety means the value was higher than the novice students.

Conclusion The present study revealed that 28% of them were comfortable in the novice group and 23.3 % of final-year students showed normal/average levels of test anxiety. The rest 72.2 % from the Novice group and 77% of Final year students were having test anxiety from High normal test anxiety to extremely high test anxiety. The t-test value showed that there is no difference in test anxiety between novice and final-year students. The final years were more anxious due to a lack of preparation and fear of final scoring. From the group of novice students, 72.2 % of them experienced high test anxiety which needs to be addressed with proper guidance and mentoring. In the early stage itself, this needs to be rectified for better academic performance in consecutive years. The remaining students are to be monitored with their academic performance and given the appropriate guidance to excel in their academics. Medical teachers need to be aware of the factors causing exam anxiety and give them proper training from day one onwards.