Anxiety, cognitive interference, and school performance of Italian children.

The relationship between test-anxiety and school performance is thought to be mediated by stress of cognitive appraisal and interference. Worry appears to be the critical component of test-anxiety which affects task performance done in the USA. The present goal was to investigate relationships among cognitive interference, test-anxiety, and school performance of Italian children, 11 to 13 years old (150 boys, 150 girls). The results show that prior findings are applicable to the Italian youngsters, namely, that cognitive interference is positively related to test-anxiety and both are related to school performance.