Colegio Philadelphia Internacional
“Educación Integral Bilingüe con Amor y Excelencia”
English and Literature 10th grade
Research Paper Example
Topic: The Correlation Between Anxiety and Academic Performance
Introduction: The introduction sets out to define the subject of the study. The importance of the study
is addressed here along with a thesis statement that asserts the objective and position of the paper.
In our competitive environment, tests and examinations at all levels of education, particularly at the
higher education level, have been deemed a significant and powerful tool for decision making, with
people of all ages being evaluated on their achievement, skills, and abilities. Students with anxiety
disorders have a lethargic attitude toward their academics, exhibiting a lack of enthusiasm in learning,
poor exam achievement, and poor assignment performance. Anxious students have a shorter memory
span, lose concentration, lack confidence, and have weak reasoning abilities. External elements such as
the examination hall setting; examiner behavior, and internal factors such as the structuring of
questions in a test, sufficient context explanation, and so on have all been suggested by the researchers
as ways to reduce anxiety associated with tests and study. Despite these efforts, several studies have
identified anxiety as one of the leading causes of student underachievement and poor performance at
various stages of their educational careers.
Literature Review: If wondering how to write a literature review, let us tell you that the background is
where you start to discuss the topic in more detail. What motivated you to research this topic? What
are the previous research findings? Give a review of the existing knowledge in the area of your study.
Anxiety is a psychophysiology issue. Symptoms include psychological, bodily, and environmental
difficulties. Excessive worrying, a sensation of fear, highly sensitive responses, restlessness, and
negative thinking are all examples of anxiety. Physiological arousal and cognitive anxiety are two
elements of study anxiety.
Students of higher levels have a responsibility for maintaining their peak academic performance. This
anxiety develops through an overdemanding syllabus or insensible teaching. Studies depicted that
students having higher levels of anxiety had a lower academic performance. Studies have also revealed
that anxiety has a detrimental effect causing a decrease in memory and reasoning in students,
consistent feelings of stress, tension, and fear, and also affecting their nervous system. Previous
research observed that students’ academic performance is affected by personal efforts, peer
interaction, time management, environment, completion of assignments, study groups, teaching style,
and class attendance. Although, studies have also revealed that improved academic performance relies
on effective studying and motivation. Further studies suggested that students who had a feeling of
satisfaction and had low anxiety levels performed better in academics.
Research Methodology: This is where you state how you have conducted your research, thoroughly
describe the procedure, sample, materials, and methods.
Participants: The sample in this study is postgraduate students at Pahang University. Students having
low academic performance were tested for measuring their anxiety levels. A total of 206 students, 96
male and 110 female students with low academic scores participated in the test. Students who
participated were between the age of 22-26 and belonged to socioeconomic and diverse ethnic
backgrounds.
Measurement: STAI was used to measure the level of anxiety. The STAI has 40 questions with two
subscales. The s-Anxiety scale (Form Y-1) contains 20 statements that quantify how respondents feel
about anxiety right now. In response to the T-anxiety scale (Form Y-2) that contains 20 statements to
evaluate how they generally feel about being anxious. These forms required students to identify each
statement and determine the intensity of their emotions based on four types of ranges.
Procedure: We collected the data using the Test Anxiety Inventory from the university. Thereafter, we
randomly selected students who had lower GPAs from different departments. The students upon
selection were given questionnaires that they answered.
Data Analysis: This is where you describe your analysis techniques. What are you analyzing? What
tools or methods you have utilized to analyze the data?
Colegio Philadelphia Internacional
“Educación Integral Bilingüe con Amor y Excelencia”
English and Literature 10th grade
With the help of the Pearson correlation, regression analysis, and multivariate statistics, we examined
the relationship between anxiety and academic performance. We assessed the significant coefficient
and correlation coefficient to determine the results.
Table 1: Interpretation of STAI and GPA level Table 2: Demographics of Respondents
Table 3: Correlation between Anxiety and Academic
Performance
Results: In this section, you clearly mention your findings. You can use tables, charts, graphs etc., to
demonstrate the results where it is necessary.
Results show a significant correlation between low academic performance and high study and test
anxiety. It proves that students who have a higher anxiety level tend to perform lower than others who
have a lower anxiety level. All the 206 students had GPAs below 2.51 and had anxiety levels above 95.
The results support previous studies where anxiety played an important role in students’ academic
performance and learning. The causes for study and test anxiety or academic anxiety are identified to
be the stress to perform better, peer pressure, family pressure, fear of failure, and other factors.
Anxiety creates a lack of confidence, reduces self-motivation, and increases worry among students.
Discussion and Conclusion: In this section, you discuss the results of your study, relate it with the
thesis and summarize your study.
Academic anxiety that is related to studies and examinations has a detrimental effect on the students.
Furthermore, it is reiterated through the findings that the pressure of scoring higher on exams, fear of
failing, and consequences of failure were the main reasons for cognitive anxiety. The possible remedies
for reducing the anxiety level can be relaxation training, coaching, counseling, mental stimulations,
positive thinking, seeking social support, self-instructional training, affirmation, modalities, use of
humor, and skills training.
To summarize the discussion, we can conclude that anxiety related to study and tests have a direct
impact on the students’ academic performance. To manage this anxiety effectively, teachers and
parents can help students by using cognitive and behavioral strategies. Furthermore, the faculty and
departmental administrators must inform students about the curriculum, semester duration, and level
of dedication required to complete the course. Therefore, it is important to identify and consider
students having a higher level of anxiety must be treated to improve their academic performance.
References: In the last part of the research paper, there should be a section “works cited”,
“references” or “bibliography”. All the sources used should be mentioned in this section according to
the citation format specified by the instructor.
REFERENCES
PenMyPaper. (2023. April). Research Paper Example. PenMyPaper Blog.
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