Does repetitive negative thinking mediate the relationship between perfectionistic concerns and cognitive test anxiety?

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives

Test anxiety, particularly cognitive test anxiety, is negatively associated with academic performance. Previous research has demonstrated that higher levels of perfectionistic concerns predict higher levels of cognitive test anxiety but has not explored potential mediators of this relationship. This study investigated whether repetitive negative thinking mediated the relationship between perfectionistic concerns and cognitive test anxiety in a non-clinical, academic sample.

Methods

Participants were Australian university students (N = 129, 32 male, 94 female, 3 non-binary), aged between 18 and 53 (M = 23.96; SD = 6.88), recruited through convenience and snowball sampling. Participants completed an online questionnaire assessing demographics, repetitive negative thinking, perfectionistic concerns, and cognitive test anxiety.

Results

Mediation analysis yielded a total model accounting for 43.5% of variance in cognitive TA. Perfectionistic concerns significantly accounted for 10.6% of variance direction (F(1, 127) = 12.21, p < .001, $R^2$ = .106), and 32.5% indirectly through RNT (F(2,126) = 30.81, p < .001, $R^2$ = .329).

Conclusions

Findings demonstrate that RNT significantly mediates the relationship between perfectionistic concerns and cognitive test anxiety in this sample. Importantly, these findings may direct future studies towards investigating the effectiveness of targeting repetitive negative thinking in interventions to mitigate levels of cognitive test anxiety.

KEYWORDS:

• Test anxiety
• perfectionism
• perfectionistic concerns
• repetitive negative thinking

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Non-binary individuals were excluded from these correlations due to the very small sample size of this group (N = 3)

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.