Anxiety and academic performance in second and fifth graders

Anxiety can have an impact on some abilities like remembering information and can be associated with concentration difficulties (Dacey, Mack, & Fiore, 2016). This may results in compromising the outcomes of academic tests and, as a consequence, school failure may reinforce a sense of lack of competence in students. This sensation sharpens the level of anxiety and makes possible further failures (Saccani & Cornoldi, 2005). The aim of this research was to identify the effect of anxiety on the academic performance of primary school pupils. Two groups of participants were involved: 60 second graders and 70 fifth graders (mean age 7 and 10 years, respectively). A questionnaire for investigating trait anxiety and the MARS-R test for both math anxiety and general scholastic anxiety were administered. The data collected were analyzed in relation to both the outcomes obtained by participants in the National Evaluation System tests on math and literacy and the marks given by teachers at the end of the school year. Correlations suggest that anxiety have a negative impact especially on the fifth graders’ performance, confirming that anxiety can be "learned in the classroom" as a result of repeated situations of scholastic failure (Caponi, Cornoldi, Falco, Focchiatti, Lucangeli, 2012).