Measuring Panic as a Facet of Anxiety on Students’ Oral and Written Assessment in The University of Bamenda, Cameroon
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58425/jetm.v3i1.246Abstract
Aim: The growing concern about the declining academic performance of students in Cameroon schools and colleges provokes varied reflections on the possible factors. One, but less obvious issue is anxiety, manifested in forms like agitation, excessive worrying, restlessness, and panic. While these variants are all critical in appreciating the connections with classroom assessment, this paper primarily isolates and focuses on panic, given its common visible expression among students. Specifically, the paper centers on how panic affects the performance of students in oral and written classroom assessments at the University of Bamenda.
Methods: Systematic random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select 327 second-year students from the Faculty of Arts, Higher Teacher Training College, and the Faculty of Science to participate in the study. A sequential explanatory research design aided by a structured questionnaire, interview, and observation was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. The qualitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the likelihood ratio test was used to test the hypothesis.
Results: The findings showed that panic has a high significant effect on students’ performance in assessment (Chi-square = 232.054, df = 60, P = 0.000, far <0.05).
Conclusion: The findings indicated, among others, that when students exhibit panic during assessments, they lose concentration, forget what they studied, easily make errors, and experience disorganized speech, especially during oral assessments.
Recommendation: To reduce this type of anxiety during assessment, there is a need for intensive rehearsals before assessment, the avoidance of panic triggers, especially from invigilators, and fairness in time allocation for both oral and written assessments.
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