Examining the relationship between exam anxiety and perceived stress levels of high school senior students

Objective: The purpose this study is; to determine the relationship between exam anxiety and perceived stress levels of high school senior students. Materials and Methods: The study group of the study consisted of 389 students between the ages of 17 and 19 studying in 5 different high schools in Afşin district of Kahramanmaraş province in 2017-2018 academic year. "Personal Information Form", "Exam Anxiety Inventory" and "Perceived Stress Scale" were used as data collection tools. As this research attempts to identify and explain an existing situation; this study is in the quantitative research relational screening model. The data obtained from the study were analyzed using SPSS package program. In the analysis of the research data, t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Bonferroni-Dunn test, Mann Whitney U-test, Kruskal Wallis test and Pearson correlation coefficient were used. Results: There was a statistically significant difference between test anxiety and perceived stress averages according to gender (p<0.05). There was no significant difference between the mean scores of anxiety and stress according to age, department, parental age, parental education status, income status (p>0.05). While there was a significant difference in anxiety scores of the cohabitation variable of the parents (p = 0.024, p <0.05), no difference was found between the stress scores (p>0.05). While there was no difference between anxiety scores according to high school type variable, there was a difference between stress scores (r:0.287, p<0.01). Conclusion: There was a statistically significant low correlation between the total scores of the students' anxiety test scores and perceived stress scores.