Test Anxiety and Parenting: Literature Review

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Test Anxiety and Parenting: Literature Review

Literature Review

Parenting Style Definition

Parenting style refers to a psychological variable that signifies the different approaches that parents employ in bringing up their children (Akinsola & Udoka, 2013). These strategies often convey qualitative messages as opposed to quantitative. Al-Atram (2015) notes that parenting style signifies the response of parents to their children via predetermined behavior trends/patterns.  Parent-child relationship, according to the developmental psychologists, may fluctuate in various developmental phases where the association between child and parent like bonding changes (Chapell & Overton, 1998). Such relationships may face serious challenges during adolescence since at this age, adolescents often tend to seek and desire freedom (Aminayi et al., 2015).  A parent’s cultural and a child’s temperament patterns have the ability to influence the type of parenting style that a child may receive. Test anxiety has been shown to be among the barriers to employment of understandings, knowledge and previous information. Test anxiety is defined as an unfriendly/unpleasant emotional reaction to evaluation conditions and situations in classrooms or at schools (Butt et al., 2014).  Test anxiety is associated with psychological and behavioural problems which are experienced in formal examinations or other evaluative circumstances. Test anxiety, as an emotional implication, may root in childhood attachment and attachment style to parents. This may justify many psychological and behavioral states of people throughout their individual and academic life. Generally, the style of attachment determines the cognitive and emotional rules and the strategies which regulate emotional responses of people in situations of conflict and interpersonal relations (Chapell et al., 2005). It is against this backdrop that this paper aims at exploring the relationship between parenting style and test anxiety with the main hypothesis being that children of uninvolved, authoritarian or neglectful parents have higher levels of test anxiety than children of permissive and authoritative parents.

Types of Parenting Styles

Competent, proficient and skillful children are the outcome of a type of parenting that exercises independence, proper nurturing and firm control over their children. Such patterns equally assist in the development of extra skills in the children. Studies have also hinted that anxiety may directly result in children’s poor performance since the nature of evaluating conditions of examinations disturb focus toward possible negative implications. Nwosu et al. (2016) identified three fundamental styles of parenting, namely authoritarian parenting, authoritative parenting and permissive parenting. According to Cenkseven – Önder (2012), a child centred parenting strategy is one that upholds compact mellowness in relationship. Parents employing this strategy understand their children’s feelings and guide their children in line with regulations and they also apologize to their children for their faults (Chapell & Overton, 1998). They usually assist their children to find suitable ways of solving problems. Authoritative parents, as Fletcher et al. (2008) note, encourage their children to exercise independence but put boundaries on their children’s actions.

Authoritarian parenting style is a punishment-heavy and restrictive parenting style wherein parents make their children obey and follow their regulations and directions with no to little explanations or feedbacks and concentrate upon the family’s and child’s status and perception (Irfan, 2011). Authoritarian parents have preference for various kinds of corporal punishments, such as dashing, brisk and yelling as a kind of disciplinary conduct.

There are also permissive parents. These parents lack in parental obligations like disciplines and expectations despite trying to remain friendly to their children (Nwamuo & Ihekwaba, 2014). Permissive parenting is very indifferent or careless and parents set very few rules and punishments. In most cases, permissive parents go with whatever their children want and expect to be appreciated for the style that they uphold. Some permissive parents reimburse those things that they did miss during their childhood, and consequently give their children both materials and freedom that they never enjoyed during their childhood (Tam et al., 2012).

Anxiety sensitivity indicates that anxiety results in the development of features in which individuals feel anxious that they may experience various symptoms associated with it. Individuals who are high in fearfulness hold the view that various physiological symptoms that they exhibit, like dizziness, increased heartbeat rate, and sweating among others, are harmful and will injure them a lot since such symptoms will develop eventually into dreadful outcomes (Thergaonkar, 2007). As mentioned before, test anxiety refers to a combination of physiological somatic, tension and over-arousal symptoms, along with dread, fear, worry, fear of failure, as well as catastrophizing that happen during or after exam situations (Turner et al., 2009).

Parenting Styles and Test Anxiety

Anxiety is considered as among the commonest issues in psychopathological and psychological discourse and has been shown to be on the rise in the modern society (Cenkseven – Önder, 2012). According to Cohen et al. (2008), the nature of a parenting style to which a child is exposed has the ability of influencing the child’s levels of anxiety. Children brought up from families that have rigid principles and rules are more likely to experience anxiety compared to those from households that give them guided chances to express their choices in decision making (Irfan, 2011). Despite the fact that the process via which anxiety disorder is passed to children by their parents are unfamiliar, it has been suggested that social modeling and genetics are significant mechanisms for their transmission (Pychyl et al., 2002). Cohen et al. (2008) point out that social cognitive theories have been instrumental in articulating and stressing the influence of interpersonal association on learnt conducts. Different practices of parenting have been shown to have dissimilar directions or impacts on the growth and development of children.

According to a study that was conducted by Chapell et al. (2005), the authoritative style of parenting was found to positively sway children by instilling in the children the trust and confidence, satisfaction and high self-esteem life. Conversely, the study found out that authoritarian style of parenting positively impacts children’s academic achievement, but weighs down upon their self-trust/belief (Chapell et al., 2005). Regarding permissive style of parenting, the study found out that the style was adjudged to lower self-regulation of children (Chapell et al., 2005).

In another study that was conducted by Nwamuo and Ihekwaba (2014), anxiety in children is robustly associated with styles of parenting. The study found that mothers of children who exhibit anxiety have significantly higher conflict levels with their children as well as lower accessibility levels, responsiveness and warmth to their children. Nwamuo and Ihekwaba (2014) established a direct proportionality between father’s aggression and anxiety level and alike result was noted in the mothers in the study that was carried out by Preethi (2012) that indicated that permissive style of parenting and its hybrids have the tendency of promoting the development of performance and social anxieties in the participants more compared to other styles of parenting. Soysa and Weiss (2014) study the connection between corporal punishment within the context of styles of parenting and anxieties in pre-adolescent children and the study established a positive relationship between general levels of parental chastisement as well as elevated anxieties was elucidated, essentially for the children who were brought up by authoritarian parents and in the group children who did experience high corporal punishment levels were extra anxious. Conversely, this was not seen in children who were brought up by authoritative parents. These studies show apparent moderating role that styles of parenting have upon corporal punishment within the setting of anxieties in children, leading to a conclusion that whereas high level of corporal punishment is injurious, moderate corporal punishment may not be injurious to children in particular contexts of parenting. The study found out that father’s authoritarianism arose as a crucial forecaster of test anxiety in young children.

Founded upon the supposition that the appearance of test anxiety varies across demographic and psychological variables, Tam et al. (2012) found crucial dissimilarities in test scores of learners and the educational background of their parents. The study demonstrated that for low parental educational background, learners scored higher in the test anxiety measure and the reverse is true. According to a study by Akinsola and Udoka (2013), it was found out that there exists significant dissimilarity among students in test anxiety and anxiety sensitivity with the kind of parenting styles that they are exposed to. Similarly, the study also showed that there exists a statistically significant negative relationship between parents’ democratic attitude and test anxiety (Akinsola & Udoka, 2013). Statistically significant negative relationships were equally noted between the emotionality and worry elements of test anxiety and parents’ democratic attitudes. Worry as opposed to emotionality element of test anxiety was found to have a statistically significant negative relationship with parents’ acceptance (Akinsola & Udoka, 2013). There was found no statistical significant relationship between test anxiety and expectation and attitudes of mothers towards their children’s academics as well as gender labeled views of mothers concerning academics (Akinsola & Udoka, 2013).

Similar to the above findings were those of Thergaonkar (2007) who examined students’ test anxiety and anxiety sensitivity with respect to parenting style that the children are exposed to. The study’s results indicated that learners who were mostly affected by the authoritarian style of parenting as indicated by the test anxiety and anxiety sensitivity scores were highest in this case (Thergaonkar, 2007). Yaffe and Burg (2014) carried out a study that aimed at identifying the style of parenting and compared the self-esteem and stress on the basis of these styles of parenting, hence authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles. Results of the study indicated that difference in scores of stress and self-esteem were obtained between authoritarian and authoritative parenting style. Participants showed less in authoritative parenting than authoritative parenting (Yaffe & Burg, 2014).

Another study was also conducted by McGinn et al. (2005) which was aimed at examining the relationships between perceived adolescents’ parenting styles and anxiety sensitivity and predicted the duty of perceived styles of parenting on anxiety sensitivity. The study found out that the different styles of parenting that were significantly associated with anxiety sensitivity were protective-demanding, democratic and authoritarian styles of parenting and they were equally found to be significant predictors of adolescents’ anxiety sensitivity (McGinn et al., 2005). The study also indicated that parents often employ authoritarian style of parenting under stressful circumstances. Malakar (2018) also conducted a study that aimed at evaluating the relationship between styles of parenting over stressed mothers with the self-esteem their children. The study found out that an authoritarian style of parenting was negatively correlated with the self-esteem of children. Additionally, the study found out that over stressfulness of mothers connecting to social isolation was related positively to the self-esteem children (Malakar, 2018).

Another aspect of the study in which the students differed with respect to the kind of parenting that they received was test anxiety. A study by Preethi (2012) examined the relationship between self-efficacy, parenting style and test anxiety of secondary students.  The study found out that permissive parenting style showed negative association with students’ test anxiety, social self-efficacy and academic self-efficacy and motional self-efficacy while authoritarian parenting showed positive correlation with social self-efficacy, academic self-efficacy and test anxiety, but a negative correlation with emotional self-efficacy (Preethi, 2012). The study also showed that authoritative parenting and test anxiety have a negative correlation but the authoritative parenting had a positive correlation with social efficacy, emotional self-efficacy and academic self-efficacy (Preethi, 2012). Another study by Spera (2005) indicated that there is a significant negative relationship between parenting style and test anxiety. The results also showed that there is a significant negative relationship was obtained test anxiety and parents’ democratic attitude and parents’ acceptance of their children (Spera, 2005). The study concluded that a democratic style of parenting and the more the children accept their fathers and mothers, the more the test anxiety is prevented (Spera, 2005).

According to Al-Atram (2015), children with parents who employ democratic style of parenting are better adjusted. The study suggested that perception of parental warmth has higher chances of minimizing the threat that is implied in evaluative experiences. The study also stressed the significance of parents’ acceptance by the children. According to Nwosu et al. (2016), acceptance leads to self-identification of children which has the eventual result of giving children relief from feelings of a sense of strength and helplessness. This, according to the study, may assist a child in their academic achievements and help mitigate the children’s test anxiety. The study also indicated that worry as opposed to emotionality constituent of test anxiety had a statistically significant negative relationship with parents’ acceptance. Parents’ rejection towards their children may represent a situation of insecure attachment and conflict. Nonetheless, unlike the above studies, some researchers have found out that parents’ perfectionist attitude is positively correlated with anxiety among children (Al-Atram, 2015). Additionally, some studies have indicated that unreasonable parental expectations adversely affect the psychological wellbeing of children (Aminayi et al., 2015; Butt et al., 2014; Fletcher et al., 2008). 

It is against the backdrop of these extant literatures that this paper aims at exploring the relationship between parenting style and test anxiety. To realize this, the study’s main hypothesis was that children of uninvolved, authoritarian or neglectful parents have higher levels of test anxiety than children of permissive and authoritative parents. From the findings of the studies above, this paper is likely to fail to reject the hypothesis. The study has shown that among the various parenting styles of parenting, the authoritarian approach was the most stressful by the study’s participants. Additionally, gender difference was insignificant both in the test anxiety and sensitivity cases with the variation in styles of parenting. The students are likely to differ significantly in terms of test variety and anxiety sensitivity. Generally, the study suggests that during this 21^st century wherein people consider a rational approach and autonomy in most circumstances, too dominating and possessive styles of parenting not only create stressful conditions/situations for learners but also affects their general psychological mechanism which consequently may paralyze their full development and growth for future life.