Test Anxiety and Mental Well-Being among Undergraduate Students in a North-Central Nigerian University

Abstract

Objective: This study aims at understanding the burden of test anxiety on mental well-being among undergraduate students in a North-Central Nigerian university. Specifically, the study established the prevalence of test anxiety among undergraduate students and to ascertain whether test anxiety significantly predict mental well-being among undergraduate students or not.

Method: Cross-sectional survey design was utilized in this study, the total of 199 participants comprising females (n – 109) and males (n – 90) were purposively selected. The World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index and the Westside Test Anxiety Scale were used for data collection. Two hypotheses were tested in this study utilizing Chi-square and One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). All hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of significance; data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 27.

Result: Findings of the study revealed significant prevalence of test anxiety among undergraduate students, with 31.66% undergraduate students having moderate anxiety, 29.65% having high test anxiety, and 18.09% having extremely high-test anxiety while 11.56% had high normal test anxiety and 8.04% had average test anxiety and only 1.0% had low test anxiety, χ² = 88.487, p = 0.001, (p<0.05).  Also, test anxiety had significant influence on mental well-being among undergraduate students, F (1, 193) = 2.524, p = 0.031, ƞ² = 0.061.

Conclusion: These findings underscore the detrimental effect of test anxiety on undergraduates’ psychological functioning and highlight the need for comprehensive interventions, including counseling, academic workload reforms, and resilience-building programs.