As testing has been widely used in evaluative situations thorughout our educational system, it has also become a potent group of stressors that can highly influence pupils' well-being at school.

Research on test anxiety has a long and fruitful history. The first studies concerning test anxiety were conducted as early as 1914 (Folin & Demis & Smillie, 1914) although the concept of test anxiety as such was not under its real name investigated until 1952 when Sarason nad Mandler (1952) published a series of studies on test anxiety and its relationship to academic performance. Test Anxiety can be shotrly desribed as a subjectively perceived condition of a mental discomfort associated with worries experienced before, during or after a test or exam (Cassady et al. 2002). It involves a set of physiologivcal, psychological and behavioral responses to a testing situation where one's perforamnce will be judged (Sieber et al. 1977). Contemporary instruments developed to assess test anxiety at schools usually work with two (or more) basic dimensions of test anxiety; cognitive dimension that represents negative thoughts about the test and consequnces of its failure, and dimension of autonomic reactions that includes diverse phyiological response to testing sitution (Cassady & Johnson, 2002; Wren & Benson, 2004). Researches indicated that around one third of pupils experience anxious feelings in testing situations and this condition may be found across all levels of education (McDonald, 2001)

 The purpose of our research was to measure the level of test anxiety in 8th and 9th grade of compulsory education in Czech schools (first two years of lower-secondary education), using Children Test Anxiety Scale (CTAS) and assess the mediating role of social, affective and cognitive indicators of school environment and other demographic variables. The aim was also to make a comparative report of how CTAS works in the environment of Czech schools in comparison to the original validational study 

The final assessment battery consisted of multiple standardised scales. To assess the level of test anxiety, we used Children Test Anxiety Scale (CTAS) which is 30-item scale developed by Wren & Benson (2004). The scale measures three primary factors of test anxiety; thoughts, autonomic reactions and off-task behaviour and reach high internal consistency. To assess the social, affective and cognitive indicators of school environment we adopted a self-report questionnaire which was used in Longitudinal research in secondary education project (LOSO) which measured 4 889 secondary school pupils from 276 classes in nearly all Flemish schools in Belgium. The questionnaire involves 8 subscales that each measure a different indicator; social integration, relationship with teachers, attitudes towards homework, learning interest, learning motivation, attitude to school institution, class attentiveness and school self-concept (Opdenakker&Damme, 2000). Additional demographic items were added to final questionnaire in order to obtain information about the respondents' gender, grade (8th or 9th), final school outcomes and highest education reached by their parents. finalised paper version questionnaire was physically distributed to 15 randomly chosen standard secondary schools in Moravia district of Czech Republic. The final sample consists of 744 secondary school pupils (395 boys/347 girls; 376 8th graders/368 9th graders).

All the used instruments were confirmed to reach high internal consistency and cross-item correlation within factors and subscales. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed acceptable fit measures of 3 factor model of test anxiety scale. The factor analysis also revealed very similar results as found in the original validational study (Wren & Benson, 2004). Preliminary results indicate significant test anxiety differences based on gender and highest acquired education of parents. Multiple regression analysis showed substantial role of social integration of pupils, their learning motivation and classroom attentiveness as an indicator of lower test anxiety level. Further data analysis along with its concrete results will be presented in the conference.

- Cassady, J. & Johnson, R. (2002). Cognitive Test Anxiety and Academic Performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology 27(2), 270-296 - Folin, O., Denis, W. & Smillie, W.G. (1914). Some observationson ‘‘emotional glycosuria’’ in man. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 17(1), 519-520. - Sarason, S.B. & Mandler, G. (1952). Some correlates of test anxiety. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 47(1), 810-817 - McDonald, A. S. (2001) The Prevalence and Effects of Test Anxiety in School Children, Educational Psychology, 21(1), 89-101 - Wren, D. & Benson, J. (2004) Measuring test anxiety in children: Scale development and internal construct validation, Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 17(3), 227-240 - Sieber, J. E., O’Neil Jr., H. F., Tobias, S. (1977) Anxiety, Learning and Instruction. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. - Opdenakker, M. Ch. & Damme, J. V. (2000). Effects of Schools, Teaching Staff and Classes on Achievement and Well-Being in Secondary Education: Similarities and Differences Between School O....School Effectiveness and School Improvement 11(2), 165-196