Reassurance seeking and spoiled answers on academic tests

ABSTRACT

Background: The current study examined whether test-related reassurance seeking is associated with lower scores on a high stakes, standardized test (i.e., the ACT) after controlling for academic performance in high school, and with spoiled answers (i.e., changing correct answers to incorrect) on a subsequent academic exam.

Method: Students (N = 59) completed measures of test-related reassurance seeking behavior, other test anxiety-related constructs, and social anxiety-related constructs prior to taking the last in-class exam in their introductory psychology courses. Erasure marks on the bubble answer sheets were inspected to identify the number of spoiled answers.

Results: Replicating results from a prior study, reassurance seeking predicted underperformance on the ACT. In addition, reassurance seeking predicted the number of spoiled answers on the in-class exam. Reassurance seeking did not predict irrelevant changes or corrections.

Conclusions: Overall, these results provide additional evidence that test-related reassurance seeking is associated with performance on academic tests, and novel evidence that test-related reassurance seeking is associated with spoiling answers.

KEYWORDS:

• Test anxiety
• reassurance seeking
• safety behaviors
• spoiled answers

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of these analyses was presented at the 52nd Annual Convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies in San Diego, California. We thank the students in this study for their participation. We also thank Kathryn King and Aaron Ford for their assistance with coding, and Jessica Winder for comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Access to the deidentified data is available upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).