Relationship among Test Anxiety, Academic Motivation and Academic Achievement of Universities Students in North – West Zone, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the Relationship among Test Anxiety, Motivation and Academic Achievement of Universities Students in North-West Zone, Nigeria. The study adopted a correlational research design. The target population of the study were sixteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-five (16,855) undergraduate students. The samples of the study were 378 participants drawn from 300 level students across the three selected university in the north-west zone. Data was collected using Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI), Motivation Inventory (MI) faced and content were validated and had reliability for test anxiety .804 also motivation has a reliability of .821 respectively after pilot testing. The data collected was processed and analyzed using descriptive (frequencies, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Pearson product moment correlation). All tests were done at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The finding shows that relationship exist between test anxiety and academic motivation, academic motivation and academic achievement, the finding revealed that there is no significant relationship between test anxiety and academic achievement. Test anxiety and academic motivation p = 0.000, test anxiety and academic achievement p = 0.108, academic motivation and academic achievement p = 0.000. From the results it was recommended that students should be well motivated academically through support from parents, lecturers and co students as this have proportional relationship with their academic achievement; universities authority should provide functional psychological testing and counselling centers so that test anxiety should be controlled and managed with the help of  professional psychologist and councilors as this have inverse relationship on students' academic achievement; universities students should see test and examinations as a normal routine of educational pursuit and not a do or die affair and be less stressful about it.