Structural model of exam anxiety based on academic engagement, perfectionism and time management mediated by academic help-seeking in students

Exam anxiety is one of the common problems in school that has many negative consequences and examining the psychological and behavioral components that affect it can help provide effective solutions to solve this problem. For this purpose, the aim of the present study was to predict test anxiety based on academic engagement, perfectionism and time management mediated by academic help-seeking in students.

This study is an applied research with a correlation method based on structural model.The statistical population was all fifth and sixth grade elementary students in District 5 of Tehran in the academic year 1400-1401, from which 250 students were selected by multi-stage random cluster sampling. Research tools were questionnaires of academic engagement (Pentrich et al.'s, 1991) with a reliability of 0.75, perfectionism (Frost, 1990) with a reliability of 0.84, time management (Mourhead & Griffin, 1989) with a reliability of 0.81, academic help-seeking (Ryan & Pantrich, 1997) with a reliability of 0.79 and test anxiety (Friedman, 1997) with a reliability of 0.87. Research data were analyzed by structural equation modeling in AMOS22 software.

Results: 

The proposed research model has a good fit and the indirect effects of academic engagement, perfectionism and time management on exam anxiety through academic help- seeking are significant (P <0.05).

Considering the importance of exam anxiety and its effect on academic performance, the results of this study include important points for policy makers in the field of education.