The mediating role of test anxiety in the relationship between self-esteem and life satisfaction

The main purpose of this correlational study is to investigate the mediating role of the anxiety in the relationship between self-esteem and life satisfaction of eighth grade students. The relationships between the variables of self-esteem (dependent variable), test anxiety (mediator variable) and life satisfaction (independent variable) were analyzed by mediation analysis. The sample of the study consists of 493 eighth grade students studying in various secondary schools in a province in the Middle Black Sea region of Turkey in the academic year of 2017-2018. Of these students, 251 are girls and 242 are boys. Personal Information Form, Life Satisfaction Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and Ayda Test Anxiety Scale were used for data collection purposes. In the study, through Structural Equaiton Modeling the mediating role of test anxiety (cognitive psychological test anxiety and social environment related test anxiety) in the relationship between self-esteem and life satisfaction of eighth grader. Descriptive statistics such as percentages, standard deviation, and correlation were used to describe the variables. AMOS and SPSS were used for the statistical analysis. As the result of the study, a positive significant correlation was found between the self-esteem and life satisfaction of the students. The findings from multiple mediator analysis indicated social environement related anxiety as a significant mediator of the relationship between self-esteem and life satisfaction. According to the findings, 27% of the variation in life satisfaction was explained by self-esteem. It was also found that there was not a significant correlation between self-esteem and cognitive psychological test anxiety. On the other hand, a significant negative correlation was found between the social environment-related test anxiety and self-esteem. According to the results, 24% of the differences in the social environment-related test anxiety can be explained by low self-esteem. While there was a positive correlation (explaining 13%) between the anxiety of cognitive physiological test anxiety and life satisfaction of eighth grade students, the relationship between life satisfaction and test anxiety was negative (explaining 8%). A significant positive correlation was found between the test scores of social environment-related test anxiety and cognitive physiological test anxiety. According to this, 46% of the difference in the cognitive physiological test anxiety is explained by the social environment related test anxiety. When it was looked at sperately, either of the mediator variables did not have a medaitng role in the relationship between self-esteem and life satisfaction. When these variables were evaluated together, it was found that the self-esteem of the eighth grade students influenced the cognitive physiological anxiety over the social environment related test anxiety, therefore this suggests that the main determinant of the relationship between self-esteem and life satisfaction was social environment-related test anxiety.