Top Five Academic Anxieties (Test Anxiety ~

¶ … top five academic anxieties (Test Anxiety ~ Math Anxiety), on the average (mean) of Score, which anxiety variable achieved the lowest score? Explain.

The mean score on 'Test Anxiety' is 2.30, whilst that on 'math anxiety' is 1.90. The lowest average on first sight therefore seems to be math's anxiety which means that the class average for 'math Anxiety' was 1.90. However, when we assess the variability we see the radical divergence of variance that exist between the two Anxieties with .38 on Test Anxiety and .69 on Math's Anxiety. This means that the scores are more spread out / dispersed on the latter. This needs to be taken into consideration when evaluating results.

Among the top five academic anxieties (Test Anxiety ~ Math Anxiety), on the skewness of Score, which anxiety variable achieved the highest negatively skewed score? Explain.

Test Anxiety was -.09, whilst Math's Anxiety was .51. Test Anxiety achieved the highest negatively skewed score. This means that the class significantly skewed towards higher scores, whilst the reverse was with math's Anxiety where the class as a while showed leanings towards the lower rates.

Which social expectation anxiety variable (Employ achievement ~ Personal Time) had lowest range in the Score? Explain.

The minimum range of "Employment Achievement' had .00. Employment Achievement' stands for encouragement of promotion and satisfaction in job. It may be however that some of those sampled were not employed and therefore they rated this as 0.

Which social expectation anxiety variable (Employ achievement ~ Personal Time) had highest variability in the Score? Explain.

The Standard Deviation has the highest variability: 1.13 (Employment Achievement to .76 Personal Fulfillments). This means that there was less variability in response to items that dealt with Personal Fulfillment than in response to items that dealt with Employment Achievement, and this makes sense particularly considering that not all the respondents may have been employed.

With the table information above:

Based on the information in the table above, first consider the possible issue (problem) that you are thinking of further researching or any questions (if any) that a critical researcher might raise with regard to the study.

The study was an examination of academic anxieties, social expectation anxieties, and self-efficacy, and how they affect academic success among non-traditional college students. Researchers found that all of the social expectation anxieties except employment achievement were found to have statistically significant relationships on academic success.

This included feelings such as guilt, loss of friendships, time away from family, and striving to obtain college/life balance. Self-efficacy, on the other hand, was found to be significantly related to the students' perceived satisfaction of academic success.

What I would like to investigate is whether the same, or similar, findings cut across to other non-traditional colleges too or whether these findings are unique to Funk (2009)

Section 2: Search one or two peer-reviewed journal articles related to the Non-traditional Adult Students and/or to the information in the table 6 in Section 1; and discuss and address the possible issues with implication(s) as well as future research avenues of the study. (1-2 pages in length)

Kaufman et al. (2008) studied variables of success amongst non-traditional students (n=315) in a Hispanic-oriented institution. They discovered that the qualities of high levels of conscientiousness, intrinsic motivation, and low levels of extrinsic motivation signaled academic success. In other words, intelligence is one of the least important factors for academic success. Variables that are far more important include motivation and perseverance with the motivation coming from both internal pressures (such as self-efficacy and external (i.e need to please parents). The authors observed that these findings are not necessarily unique to non-traditional students and can be applied to traditional colleges too. In other words, that the most important qualities for academic success, regardless of the type of institution that one attends, are inevitably non-cognitive qualities. Future research direction can follow this up by applying Kaufman et al.'s (2008) research to traditional colleges and seeing whether such is indeed the case. If this is so, Kaufman et al. (2008) go on to prescribe interventions that can be particularly targeted to address these abilities in supplementation, too, to cognitive skills. Examples of potential interventions can be courses on time management, semesters on developing conscientiousness and so forth.

Earlier research conducted by Spitzer (2001) compared traditional students (age 23 and under) and nontraditional students (age 25 and over) and assessed them on five personal dimensions, two learning dimensions, and two collegiate goals (GPA and career decidedness). Multiple regressions found that significant predictors for collegiate goals were generally the same for both traditional and nontraditional students and that these constituted the qualities of academic efficacy, self-regulation, and social support.