Applied Cognitive Psychology, Appl. Cognit. Psychol.

(2014)
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/acp.3058

A Quick and Easy Strategy to Reduce Test Anxiety and Enhance Test Performance

MYRTO-FOTEINI MAVILIDI1, VINCENT HOOGERHEIDE1 and FRED PAAS1,2*

1
Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2
Early Start Research Institute, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

Summary: The negative thoughts that anxious children experience while sitting for an exam consume working memory resources
at the cost of resources for performing on the exam. In a randomized field experiment (N = 117) with primary school students, we
investigated the hypothesis that stimulating students to look through the problems of a math test before they start solving them
would reduce anxiety, release these anxiety-related working memory resources, and lead to higher test performance than not
allowing students to look ahead in the test. The results confirmed the hypothesis, indicating that the positive effects of looking
ahead applied to all students, regardless of their anxiety level (low, medium, or high). The results suggest that by looking ahead in
a test, less working memory resources are consumed by intrusive thoughts, and consequently, more resources can be used for
performing on the test. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

People’s educational and professional careers are to a large
extent determined by the outcomes of examinations that
evaluate the quality and quantity of their learning. Past
research has shown that test anxiety represents a major threat
to students’ performance on examinations (e.g., Ashcraft,
2002; Ashcraft & Krause, 2007; Dutke & Stober, 2001;
Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007). Test anxiety
may lead to so-called choking under pressure (e.g., Baumeister,
1984), which has been described by Ramirez and Beilock
(2011) as a situation in which people perform more poorly than
expected given their skill level, especially when there are
positive consequences for good performance and negative
consequences for poor performance. Such a situation will
typically result in intrusive thoughts, which incorporate nega-
tive perceptions related to expectancies, past experiences
(Meece, Wigfield, & Eccles, 1990), and value judgments such
as worries, thoughts of low self-esteem and self-confidence,
feelings of having to write a difficult and unfamiliar test, prob-
ability of failure, sense of inefficacy and of being unprepared for
a test, negative social comparisons with fellow students, and a
wish to elude from the test situation (Zatz & Chassin, 1985).
It is assumed that these anxiety-related intrusive thoughts
or worries about the situation and its consequences consume
some of the limited working memory resources, which con-
sequently cannot be used for activities that are relevant for
performing successfully on the test (Beilock & Carr, 2005;
Grimley & Banner, 2008). During tests, high anxious people
need significantly more response time and greater effort to
achieve the same performance level than low anxious
people. This happens because, in accordance with selective
attentional mechanisms, high anxious children tend to focus
more on emotionally threatening stimuli such as failure and
mistake and less on the required task (Ramirez & Beilock,
2011; Vasey, El-Hag, & Daleiden, 1996). Because anxious
students often perform below their ability, it is considered
important to discover instructional strategies that can
manage the student’s anxiety level so that they can use all
working memory resources for task-relevant processes and
*Correspondence to: Fred Paas, Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University
Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
E-mail: paas@fsw.eur.nl
perform up to their maximum potential. This article presents
an experimental study into the effects of an instructional
strategy that allows students to look ahead in a test at the start
of it, on anxiety, working memory load, and test performance.
According to cognitive load theory (CLT; Paas, Renkl, &
Sweller, 2003; Sweller, 1988; Sweller, Ayres, & Kalyuga,
2011), human cognitive architecture consists of a working
memory that is limited in capacity to 4 ± 1 elements of infor-
mation (Baddeley, 1986; Cowan, 2001; Miller, 1956) and
duration to about 20 seconds (Peterson & Peterson, 1959)
and that interacts with a comparatively unlimited long-term
memory. Central to CLT is the notion that working memory
architecture and its limitations should be a major conside-
ration when designing instruction. These limitations are
ameliorated by changes in long-term memory associated with
learning (Paas & Sweller, 2012; Sweller, Van Merriënboer, &
Paas, 1998). During learning, new information is temporarily
stored in working memory, and, if rehearsed, coded, or
imagined, it can be permanently stored in cognitive schemas
in long-term memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1971).
To perform well on a test, information that was previously
stored in long-term memory needs to be activated and
retrieved, after which it can be manipulated in working memory.
Complex tasks, such as equations in mathematics or chemistry,
typically consist of a high number of interacting information
elements and consequently require more working memory
capacity (i.e., impose a higher cognitive load) for the information
manipulation process than easy tasks (Sweller et al., 2011).
Every other process that simultaneously competes for work-
ing memory capacity will interfere with performance on the
test, especially for complex problems. These competing pro-
cesses can vary from monitoring information in the environ-
ment (e.g., Vredeveldt, Hitch, & Baddeley, 2011) to monitor-
ing distracting information that is generated by oneself, such as
thoughts about failure (e.g., Ramirez & Beilock, 2011).
Cognitive load theory focuses on an optimal use of
working memory resources and the prevention of cognitive
overload in learning, especially in complex tasks (Paas &
Van Merriënboer, 1994a). It is concerned with the develop-
ment of instructional methods that stimulate people’s learning
and transfer of acquired knowledge and skills by efficiently
using their limited cognitive processing capacity (Paas, Renkl,

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

M.-F. Mavilidi et al.
et al., 2003; Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2004; Sweller, 1988,
1999). In cognitive load research, the perceived amount of
invested mental effort is considered a reliable estimator of
the working memory capacity that is consumed, or the
cognitive load that is imposed by the learning task (Paas,
Tuovinen, Tabbers, & Van Gerven, 2003; Paas & Van
Merriënboer, 1994b).
Cognitive load theory categorizes two types of cognitive
load, that is, intrinsic and extrinsic, which together determine
the total cognitive load imposed by the task on the learner’s
cognitive system (Sweller, 2010; Sweller et al., 2011). Intrin-
sic cognitive load is generated by the materials to be learned
and is imposed by the extent to which essential elements of
information interact. If there are many interacting elements
that are intrinsic to the task, intrinsic cognitive load is high,
and subsequently, that study material is difficult to be learned.
Extrinsic or extraneous cognitive load is generated by the
instructional procedures that accompany the to-be-learned
materials, the physical learning environment (Choi, Van
Merriënboer, & Paas, 2014), and the learners’ affective
responses, such as anxiety, to these procedures and the
learning environment. An essential assumption of CLT is that
while working on complex tasks, the total pool of working
memory resources is divided among activities that are relevant
to task performance (i.e., intrinsic load) and activities that are
not relevant to task performance (i.e., extraneous load). This
means that resources that are used for activities that impose
an extraneous load are not available for activities that impose
an intrinsic load. Therefore, an important goal of instructional
design according to CLT is to optimize the relationship
between intrinsic and extraneous load by minimizing extrinsic
cognitive load so that as much as possible working memory
resources can be devoted to intrinsic cognitive load (Sweller
et al., 2011).
The intrusive thoughts that result from anxiety on a test
can be considered an important source of extraneous cogni-
tive load that should be reduced to release resources that
can be used to deal with intrinsic load, thereby enhancing
test performance. In a recent study, Ramirez and Beilock
(2011) examined whether the strategy of writing down
anxiety-related intrusive thoughts before a high-pressure test
could be used as a strategy to improve performance. In four
experiments with ninth-grade students, they compared three
conditions, in which students were asked either to write
about their test-related thoughts for 10 minutes immediately
before a math exam or to write about an irrelevant unemo-
tional subject or to sit down just quietly. Their hypothesis
that students’ exam performance would improve most when
they expressed their intrusive thoughts and worries before
the test about the forthcoming exam was confirmed by the
results. The expressive writing about worries and not just
writing itself was a beneficial strategy for reducing anxiety
in high-pressure situations, especially for high anxious
students. The results of this study suggest that reducing the
working memory load that is imposed by intrusive thoughts
improves students’ performance.
In this study, a randomized controlled classroom study
was conducted to examine whether a ‘looking ahead’
strategy, in which students were allowed to look shortly
through a math test before starting to solve the test problems,
Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
could reduce anxiety and its negative effects on test perfor-
mance in sixth-grade primary school children. Similar strate-
gies, such as skimming a text before reading, have been
found to facilitate the construction of mental representations
through the mapping between the structure and content of
information (Duggan & Payne, 2009; Payne & Reader,
2006). With regard to the looking ahead strategy, it was
expected that skimming the test problems would activate
the cognitive schemas that are necessary to solve the prob-
lems and reduce the students’ anxiety. Consequently, less
working memory resources would be occupied by worries
or intrusive thoughts about failure and more working mem-
ory resources would be available for task-relevant processes.
Therefore, our main hypothesis was that, for low, medium,
and high anxiety students, those who were allowed to look
ahead in a test at the start of it would experience less anxiety
and achieve higher test performance than those who were not
allowed to look ahead in the test. Although no differences in
overall working memory load were predicted between the
low, medium, and high anxious students, it was expected
that the students, who would have the opportunity to look
ahead in the test, would show a more favorable relationship
between working memory resources used for performing
on the test (i.e., intrinsic cognitive load) and working mem-
ory resources used for anxiety-related processes (i.e., extra-
neous cognitive load) than the students who would not have
the opportunity to look ahead in the test.
METHOD
Participants
The experiment was carried out in three Greek primary
schools in the city of Athens. Participants were 117 sixth-
grade children (51 boys and 66 girls) 11–12 years of age
(M = 11.59, SD = 0.44). Parents gave their consent after
being informed about the experiment by the teachers. The
children were divided into low, medium, and high anxiety
groups on the basis of their scores on the cognitive anxiety
test questionnaire (Cassady & Johnson, 2002). The cognitive
anxiety questionnaire was administered 1 week before the
start of the experiment during a usual school day in a
classroom-based setting. In each school, the child that
achieved the highest test score received a gift card of €10,
as a prize. Participants were matched for anxiety level and
randomly assigned to either the control or the experimental
condition. This resulted in 20 low anxious, 18 medium
anxious, and 20 high anxious students in the control
condition (nonlooking ahead strategy; N = 58), and 19 low
anxious, 21 medium anxious students, and 19 high anxious
students in the experimental condition (looking ahead
strategy, N = 59).
Design
The dependent variables math test performance, invested
mental effort to achieve that performance, and total test task
complexity were used in a 2 (test strategy; looking ahead vs.
nonlooking ahead) × 3 (anxiety level; low vs. medium vs.
high) between-subjects design. Moreover, in a mixed
Appl. Cognit. Psychol. (2014)

design, time of measurement of children’s anxiety during
the test (at the start, during, and at the end) was used as a
within-subjects factor and anxiety level and test strategy
as between-subjects factors.
Materials
Overview of materials
Booklets were prepared for the cognitive anxiety test
questionnaire and for the math test. A leaflet with general
instructions about the content and process of the test was
created, which included two examples of test problems, as
well as rating scales of task complexity and mental effort,
and a draft paper.
Measurement of anxiety
A Greek translation of the cognitive anxiety test question-
naire (Cassady & Johnson, 2002) was used as an instrument
to measure the students’ level of test anxiety. The test was
carefully introduced and explained to the children by the
researcher until she was assured that all the children under-
stood the questionnaire.
Cassady and Johnson (2002) have shown that the ques-
tionnaire has a high internal consistency (α = .86). The ques-
tionnaire consisted of 27 items that measured trait anxiety on
a 4-point item scale ranging from 1, not typical of me, to 4,
very typical of me. They were asked statements such as ‘I
lose sleep over worrying about examinations’, or ‘I have less
difficulty than the average college student in learning
assigned chapters in textbooks’. Also, statements about the
relationship between cognitive test anxiety and performance
were included, that is, ‘finding unexpected questions on a
test causes me to feel challenged rather than panicky’, or
‘when I first get my copy of a test, it takes me a while to calm
down to the point where I can begin to think straight’. The
minimum score that a child could achieve was 27 and the
maximum 108.
Math outcome measure
Previous math grades assessed by the children’s teachers in
the current semesters were taken into consideration for
estimating students’ prior knowledge and mathematical
background. For both conditions, the math test consisted of
10 open-ended problems, selected from a sample of the
California standard tests (STAR, nd; http://www.cde.ca.
gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqmath6.pdf) and test problems
created by the Dutch National Institute for Educational
Measurement (CITO, nd) for the end of primary school test
(www.eindtoets.nl). It incorporated problems that covered
the following topics from a syllabus that children had
studied throughout the year: simple algebraic equations,
geometry, ratios, and combined problems. Examples of
the test problem are shown in Figure 1. The overall
complexity of the test was considered high because of the
number of interacting information elements in each prob-
lem (Sweller & Chandler, 1994) and the time pressure that
was imposed on the participants. For each correct answer,
students achieved one point.
Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A strategy to reduce anxiety
Figure 1. Two examples of test problems
Measurement of task complexity
After each test problem, the children had to rate the level of
complexity on a 9-point scale ranging from 1, very very low
task complexity, to 9, very very high task complexity (Sweller
et al., 2011).
Measurement of mental effort
After each test problem, the mental effort that children
invested for each test problem was assessed through the
mental effort scale of Paas (1992; see also Paas, Tuovinen,
et al., 2003; Paas & Van Merriënboer, 1994a), which
consists of a 9-point symmetrical category scale ranging
from 1, very very low mental effort, to 9, very very high men-
tal effort. The amount of mental effort invested by children
per problem was decoded into a numerical value, and for
the whole test, the average amount of mental effort invested
was calculated.
Procedure
The study was conducted in the schools’ classrooms by one
experimenter (i.e., first author). The teachers handed out the
anxiety questionnaire to the students. On the basis of the
students’ responses in the questionnaire, they were categorized
as low, medium, and high anxious students and randomly
assigned to either the control or experimental condition. One
week after the anxiety questionnaire had been administered
to students, they sat the math test. Before the start of the test,
the experimenter explained the procedure of the test in
15 minutes. It was explained that no further clarifications
or explanations would be given during the test. A countdown
timer was positioned in a central place in the classroom in
order to be easily accessible to all students and induce anxiety.
Participants worked on the 10 test problems one by one. When
the time was up for a problem, the experimenter indicated
that the students had to move on to the next problem. The
control group had 4 minutes for solving the first problem
and 3 minutes for each of the nine remaining problems.
Appl. Cognit. Psychol. (2014)
M.-F. Mavilidi et al.
The experimental group had 1 minute to look through all the
test problems at the start of the test and 3 minutes for solving
each test problem. At the end of each problem, participants
indicated on the rating scales how complex they perceived
the problem and how much mental effort they invested in
it. At the end of the test, participants rated on the anxiety
scale how anxious they were at the beginning of the test
(when starting to solve the first test problem), during the test
(while solving the problems), and at the end of the test (after
solving the last test problem). The whole process lasted
45 minutes and was conducted first in one class and subse-
quently in the other class. The delegation of conditions in
the two classrooms was counterbalanced among different
schools. It was also ensured that communication between
students of different classrooms was not possible while
conducting the experiment.
Finally, in addition to the anxiety induced by the limited
time, anxiety was induced by telling the students that they
were matched with a fellow student from the other class
who had already sat the test, creating a group of two
students. They were also told that their partner had received
a satisfactory grade in the test and subsequently the possibility
of earning the prize would depend on them. This procedure
was adopted from the study of Ramirez and Beilock (2011).
Ecological validity was ensured by testing participants under
normal classroom conditions, in which the math test was
administered as a regular examination.
RESULTS
The assumptions of analysis of variance (ANOVA) were
tested, and no violations were found in the sample. An
ANOVA performed on the children’s previous math grades
revealed that there was no difference as a function of
experimental condition (looking ahead vs. nonlooking
ahead), F(1, 115) < 1, p = .541. In addition, the ANOVA
performed on children’s anxiety level, as evaluated by the
cognitive anxiety test questionnaire before the test, revealed
no differences between the looking ahead and nonlooking
ahead conditions, F(1, 115) < 1, p = 1.0.
Math test performance
Children’s anxiety level was negatively related to children’s
previous math grades, r = .20, p = .028, and their grades on
the test in this study, r = .25, p = .007. This means that the
higher the anxiety of children, the lower their mathematical
performance on previous tests and on the current test. Also,
there was a positive relationship between children’s previous
math grades and their performance on the test in this study,
r = .53, p < .001.
Data on math performance were analyzed with a two-way
ANOVA, with test strategy and anxiety level as between-
subjects factors. Table 1 shows the mean scores on the math
test as a function of test strategy and children’s anxiety level.
The main effects of test strategy, F(1, 111) = 11.50, p = .001,
η2p = 0.09, and children’s anxiety level, F(1, 111) = 4.73,
p = .011, η2p = 0.08, were found significant. However, the
interaction between test strategy and children’s anxiety level
Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
was not significant, F(1, 111) < 1, p = .739. Tukey’s post-
hoc tests revealed that low anxious students (M = 6.00,
SD = 1.69) performed significantly better than high anxious
students (M = 4.85, SD = 1.82), t(2) = 2.84, p = .015, r = .07.
Moreover, medium anxious students (M = 5.89, SD = 2.06)
performed significantly better than high anxious students
(M = 4.85, SD = 1.82), t(2) = 2.56, p = .032, r = .05. Finally,
math performance of low anxious students (M = 6.00,
SD = 1.69) and medium anxious students (M = 5.89, SD = 2.06)
did not differ significantly, t(2) < 1, p = .956, r = .00 The main
effect of test strategy indicated that the experimental condition
(M = 6.14, SD = 1.71), which allowed children to look ahead in
the test, performed significantly better on the math test than the
control condition (M = 5.00, SD = 1.96), which did not allow
children to look ahead in the test. The effect sizes observed
for the test strategy were moderate to large (d = 0.62).
Mental effort
With regard to the mental effort that children invested when
completing the test, a two-way ANOVA was conducted with
test strategy and anxiety level as between-subject factors.
Table 1 portrays the means of invested mental effort as a
function of test strategy and anxiety level. Results showed that
neither the main effects of test strategy, F(1, 111) = 3.45,
p = .066, η2p = 0.03, also explained by the small effect sizes
observed (d = 0.02), and anxiety level, F(1, 111) = 1.03,
p = .359, η2p = 0.01, nor the interaction between test strategy
and anxiety level, F (1, 111) < 1, p = .692, was significant.
Task complexity
For analyzing children’s ratings regarding the task complex-
ity of the test, a two-way ANOVA was conducted with test
strategy and anxiety level as between-subject factors. Table 1
portrays the means in task complexity as a function of test
strategy and anxiety level. There was no significant main
effect of test strategy, F(1, 111) < 1, p = .353, while the
effect sizes observed were small (d = 0.17), nor a signifi-
cant interaction between test strategy and anxiety level,
F(1, 111) < 1, p = .162. There was, however, a significant main
effect of anxiety level, F(1, 111) = 4.35, p = .015, η2p = 0.07.
Tukey’s post-hoc tests revealed that low anxious students
(M = 4.20, SD = 1.34) experienced the test as less complex than
high anxious students (M = 5.03, SD = 1.27), t(2) = 2.92,
p = .012, r = .07. At the same time, medium anxious students
(M = 4.51, SD = 1.13) experienced the test just as complex as
high anxious students (M = 5.03, SD = 1.27), t(2) = 1.84,
p = .162, r = .02. Finally, low anxious students (M = 4.20,
SD = 1.34) and medium anxious students (M = 4.51, SD = 1.13)
did not differ in their perception of the complexity of the prob-
lems, t(2) = 1.08, p = .527, r = .01.
Anxiety at the beginning, during, and at the end of the test
Table 2 shows the mean differences in children’s anxiety at
the beginning, during, and at the end of the test.
A mixed ANOVA was performed with time of measuring
anxiety during the test (at the start, during, and at the end) as
within-subjects factor, and test strategy and anxiety level as
Appl. Cognit. Psychol. (2014)
 A strategy to reduce anxiety

Table 1. Means (SD) of math performance, mental effort, and task complexity as a function of children’s anxiety level and test strategy
Looking ahead condition Nonlooking ahead condition

Low anxious Medium anxious High anxious Total Low anxious Medium anxious High anxious Total
Math performance 6.68 (1.48) 6.48 (1.70) 5.24 (1.67) 6.14 (1.71) 5.35 (1.65) 5.19 (2.28) 4.48 (1.92) 5.00 (1.96)
Mental effort 4.43 (1.37) 4.27 (1.34) 4.87 (1.19) 4.52 (1.31) 4.80 (1.70) 5.02 (1.11) 5.13 (1.09) 4.98 (1.32)
Task complexity 4.11 (1.34) 4.33 (1.25) 5.03 (1.27) 4.47 (1.34) 4.28 (1.39) 4.72 (0.96) 5.07 (1.21) 4.69 (1.23)

Table 2. Means (SD) of children’s anxiety at the beginning, during, and at the end of the test as a function of test strategy and their general
anxiety level
Looking ahead condition Nonlooking ahead condition

Low anxious Medium anxious High anxious Total Low anxious Medium anxious High anxious Total
Start of test 2.79 (2.59) 3.33 (2.13) 3.63 (2.14) 3.25 (2.28) 2.60 (2.35) 4.89 (2.56) 5.95 (2.48) 4.47 (2.81)
During test 3.84 (2.54) 3.90 (2.19) 4.05 (2.24) 3.93 (2.29) 2.55 (2.58) 4.17 (1.79) 6.00 (2.29) 4.24 (2.65)
End of test 2.26 (2.00) 2.48 (1.99) 2.42 (2.38) 2.39 (2.09) 1.75 (1.83) 2.56 (2.28) 3.85 (2.78) 2.72 (2.46)
Total 2.96 (2.38) 3.24 (2.10) 3.37 (2.25) 3.19 (2.22) 2.30 (2.25) 3.87 (2.21) 5.27 (2.52) 3.81 (2.64)

between-subjects factors. Mauchly’s test indicated that the
assumption of sphericity was not violated, χ(2) = 5.04,
p = .081. Results revealed significant main effects of time of
measuring anxiety, F(2, 222) = 30.13, p < .001, η2p = 0.21,
and anxiety level, F(2, 111) = 7.87, p = .001, η2p = 0.12. How-
ever, the main effect of test strategy, F(1, 111) = 3.20,
p = .076, η2p = 0.02, was not significant. The interactions
between time of measurement and anxiety level, F(4,
222) = 1.22, p = .304, η2p = 0.02, time of measurement and test
strategy, F(2, 222) = 3.02, p = .051, η2p = 0.03, and time of mea-
surement, anxiety level, and test strategy, F(4, 222) < 1,
p = .647, η2p = 0.01, were not significant. The main effect of
time of measurement indicated that children’s anxiety differed
as a function of the time of measurement. Follow-up analyses
revealed that anxiety at the beginning of the test was not signi-
ficantly different from anxiety during the test, F(1, 111) = 1.34,
p = .249, η2p = 0.01. However, anxiety at the beginning,
F(1, 111) = 33.19, p < .001, η2p = 0.23, as well as anxiety
during the test, F(1, 111) = 48.18, p < .001, η2p = 0.30,
was significantly different from anxiety at the end of the
test. The main effect of anxiety level indicated that anxiety
scores were differentially affected for low, medium, and
high anxious students. Follow-up analyses indicated that
whereas low anxious students (M = 2.63, SD = 2.31) were
less anxious than high anxious students (M = 4.32,
SD = 2.39), t(2) = 4.04, p < .001, r = .13, there was no
difference between low anxious and medium anxious
students (M = 3.56, SD = 2.16), t(2) = 2.13, p = .088,
r = .04, and between medium anxious and high anxious
students, t(2) = 1.90, p = .141, r = .03.
DISCUSSION
We demonstrated that an instructional strategy that allowed
low, medium, and high anxious students to look ahead in a
math test before starting to solve the test problems was
effective for reducing anxiety and enhancing performance.
It is assumed that the working memory resources that were
released through the reduction of anxiety could be used for
task-relevant processes. It is believed that the short (1 minute)
looking ahead intervention had both cognitive and affective
effects. From a cognitive point of view, the results suggest
that skimming the test problems before starting to work on
them activated the relevant cognitive schemas for solving
the test problems. From an affective point of view, the results
suggest that the students who skimmed the problems knew
what to expect on the test and might have felt more confident
(see also Jansen et al., 2013; Protheroe & Perkins-Gough,
2000). The use of strategies and students’ self-efficacy beliefs
are determining factors of problem-solving accuracy and effi-
ciency and consequently math performance, especially in
high complex tasks (Hoffman, 2010; Hoffman & Schraw,
2009; Hoffman & Spatariu, 2008; Pajares & Kranzler,
1995). Social cognitive theory advocates that self-efficacy is
related to personal beliefs about performing and achieving
the expected gains (Bandura, 1986). Students demonstrating
high self-efficacy are more likely to invest more effort and
show more persistence in solving complex math tasks
(Pajares & David, 1994; Pajares & Graham, 1999; Pajares
& Kranzler, 1995). Future research could unravel the effects
of anxiety reduction and schema activation, by adding an ex-
perimental condition in which anxiety is reduced, but
schemas are not activated. An example of such a condition
is the writing intervention that was used by Ramirez and
Beilock (2011), who asked students to write down their
worries about the test before it started.
Although the overall mental effort invested in the test did
not differ between both conditions, the results on perfor-
mance indicate that the students in the looking ahead condi-
tion were more efficient (Paas & Van Merrienboer, 1993;
Van Gog & Paas, 2008) in the sense that they achieved
higher performance with the same mental effort investment.
This suggests that there was a more favorable relationship
between extraneous and intrinsic cognitive load in the
looking ahead condition than in the nonlooking ahead

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. (2014)
M.-F. Mavilidi et al.
condition. In the latter condition, mental effort scores imply
that more working memory resources were allocated to
anxiety-related worries about failure in high anxious
students. Unfortunately, the mental effort rating scale does
not allow us to differentiate between different types of
cognitive load. Future studies could use a newly developed
instrument for measuring different types of cognitive load
(Leppink, Paas, Van der Vleuten, Van Gog, & Van
Merriënboer, 2013).
Interestingly, recent clinical anxiety studies have used
hypotheses and found results that are consistent with the
theoretical framework of CLT used in this study. For
example, Amir and Bomyea (2011) showed that nonanxious
individuals demonstrated better working memory capacity
than individuals with generalized social phobia for neutral
words but not for social threat words. Individuals with
generalized social phobia demonstrated better working
memory capacity performance for threat words relative to
neutral words. These results suggest that it is not the total
working memory capacity that differs between nonanxious
individuals and individuals with generalized social phobia
but the ratio between working memory capacity for neutral
words and social threat words. In addition, the study of
Judah, Grant, Lechner, and Mills (2013) showed that work-
ing memory load moderates late attentional bias in social
anxiety such that avoidance occurs if working memory load
is low and difficulty disengaging attention occurs if working
memory load is high. This result suggests that the effects of
anxiety on test performance might differ as a function of the
working memory load imposed by the test problems.
Relatively simple problems might have different effects on
anxiety and test performance than relatively complex problems.
The analyses on task complexity showed that high
anxious students rated the test as more complex than low
anxious students. Because the highly anxious students were
likely, on average, less skilled, as suggested by the negative
correlation between participants’ anxiety level and previous
math grade, it is no surprise that they experienced the test
as more complex. In high anxious students, more resources
are allocated to anxiety-related aspects, leaving less
resources for task-relevant aspects, which are needed to
perform well on the task. This is also reflected by their per-
formance on the math test, with the low and medium anxious
students outperforming the high anxious students. Children’s
perception about the complexity of the test and their perfor-
mance may be mediated by the confidence they have in their
own mathematical capabilities (i.e., self-efficacy; Maynard
& Hakel, 1997).
From a theoretical perspective, the current study is rele-
vant for CLT (Sweller et al., 2011). Although the available
working memory capacity plays a central element of the
theory, cognitive load researchers have only been interested
in the allocation of working memory resources to aspects
of the learning task. This study shows that the amount of
available working memory resources is also determined by
affective factors, such as anxiety-related worries about
failure. These worries occupy working memory capacity,
which reduces the available capacity, and make it relevant
for cognitive load theorists and researchers to consider. In
this study, children’s anxiety level was measured through
Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
their answers on the trait anxiety questionnaire and after-
wards linked to their state anxiety through their rating scale
scores. This might explain why anxiety level was not an
important contributor to the interactions between test
strategy in performance and mental effort invested. In future
research, using a real measure of children’s state anxiety
could be more indicative for the relationship between
anxiety, performance, and test strategy. The current study
was conducted on examining students’ math performance.
Other STEM domains such as science, technology, and engi-
neering in older students, as well as language, vocabulary,
and text comprehension of first and second language in
younger students, could be further investigated in terms of
the effectiveness of the looking ahead intervention. In addi-
tion, it would be interesting to determine whether the effects
of the looking ahead strategy generalize to older students.
From a practical perspective, it is clear that the short
duration and simplicity of the looking ahead strategy
make it very useful for educational practice. Although
further studies need to be conducted to show whether
the strategy generalizes to other topics, such as language,
or that a longer period to look ahead will have a greater
impact on anxiety and performance, the strategy seems
very promising in enabling students to perform up to their
maximum potential.
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