The Adolescent Test Anxiety Scale

There is a need for a valid and reliable scale to measure test anxiety in school age students. This study details the development, reliability, and preliminary validity evidence of a self-report measure of test anxiety for high school (grades 9 through 12; ages 14-18) students, the Adolescent Test Anxiety Scale (ATAS). A preliminary 70-item scale was administered to a sample (N = 316) of adolescents. This sample was split into a development sample (N = 50), which was used to obtain preliminary reliability estimates and reduce the number of items, and a cross-validation sample ( n = 256), which was used to examine the factor structure and obtain initial construct validity evidence. The results indicate that the ATAS has high internal consistency. Additionally, the results of a factor analysis indicate that the scale consists of two factors: a Cognitive factor and a Physiological factor. The ATAS also exhibited evidence for convergent and discriminant validity by its correlations with another measure of test anxiety and a general measure of anxiety. Therefore, the ATAS appears to be a reliable and valid measure of adolescent test anxiety. Implications of the findings and directions for future research with the scale are discussed.