Test Anxiety: Participation and Exclusion Beyond the Institution

• In Event: 2421 - Disability and Society

Abstract

Using narrative analysis techniques, we analyzed the interviews of eight college students who described their experience with test anxiety. Each individual story and experience points to the ebb and flow of participation and exclusion in not only the activities of schooling, but as a full participant in life more broadly. Significantly, we find that what it means to be a successful student in higher education has bearing on what it means to be a productive and worthwhile citizen, daughter, and partner: that successful and normative participation in schooling signals the ability and opportunity to participate in life beyond the institution. Complicating the study of test anxiety are the ways in which higher education settings enact their own gatekeeping mechanisms to legitimize disability through acknowledgement and accommodation.

Authors

• M. Nickie Coomer, Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis

• Kenzie Latham-Mintus, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)