SOURCES OF EXAMINATION ANXIETY AMONG FINAL YEAR STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Examination anxiety, a common phenomenon among students of tertiary institution (most especially the finally students), is characterized by feelings of severe apprehension, uneasiness, nervousness, fear and tension which often predispose them to academic failure in particular and health hazards on the other hand. This study therefore investigated sources of examination anxiety among final year students of University of Ilorin, Nigeria. The descriptive survey method of research was adopted for the study while the simple random sampling technique was used to select 600 respondents that participated in the study.  The instrument used to gather the required information was questionnaire type titled “Sources of Examination Anxiety Questionnaire (SEAQ)”. It has two sections (A&B). Section ‘A’ sought the demographic information of the respondents while ‘B’ has four sub-sections containing five items each. The measure of central tendency and t-test statistics were used to analyse the data gathered for the study.  The findings revealed that emotion is the major source of examination anxiety among final year students of tertiary institutions. The respondents were different in their sources of examination anxiety based on gender but similar based on mode of entry. It was recommended that guidance counsellors, curriculum planners and seasoned educational administrators should be adequately involved in students’ affairs and in formulating academic calendar for tertiary institutions.