Effect of anxiety on performance in multiple choice examination

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Psychology
• Assessment

Background:

• Negative marking in assessments offers logistical benefits but may negatively impact anxious students.
• True/false questions with varied marking schemes were used to investigate anxiety's role in performance.
• Medical student anxiety levels were compared to norms and assessed for gender differences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of positive versus negative marking on true/false examination performance.
• To determine if anxiety levels influence the performance of medical students under different marking schemes.
• To assess the association between state-trait anxiety and examination outcomes in medical education.

Main Methods:

• Administered the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to 212 third-year medical students.
• Implemented a true/false examination with negative marking in the first half and no penalties in the second half.
• Compared student performance on both halves of the examination and analyzed the correlation with anxiety levels.

Main Results:

• Trait anxiety did not significantly correlate with performance in either negatively or positively marked sections.
• For women, lower state anxiety showed a slight positive association with performance on the negatively marked section (r = 0.29), explaining 8% of the variance.
• Overall, anxiety showed only a slight correlation with results from the negatively marked examination.

Conclusions:

• Anxious medical students are not significantly disadvantaged by negatively marked true/false examinations.
• The study suggests that negative marking strategies can be employed without unduly penalizing anxious students.
• Further research could explore other assessment formats and anxiety interventions in medical education.