Investigation of the role of middle school students' attitudes and anxiety towards exam question types on exam motivation and success

This study aims to examine whether secondary school students' attitudes and concerns towards exam question types contribute to the change in exam motivation and success. Additionally, it seeks to investigate whether a significant difference exists between students' attitudes toward exam question types, anxiety, exam motivation, and exam success scores according to gender. This work was held in a public secondary school in the Kaynarca district of Sakarya province in the second semester of the 2022-2023 academic years. The study sample is 121 secondary school students. The study was carried out using the relational scanning method. Within the scope of the relational screening method, attitude, anxiety, and exam motivation scales were applied to the students for five different exam question types. The data were analyzed using the SPSS package program. When the data of the study was analyzed, it was determined that secondary school students' attitudes, exam motivation, and exam success towards the open-ended exam question type were low, while their anxiety was high. However, it was observed that attitudes, exam motivation, and exam success towards multiple-choice, short-answer, true-false, and matching exam question types were high, while their anxiety was low. Additionally, it was observed that there was a positive relationship between secondary school students' attitudes toward five different exam question types, exam motivation, and exam success, and a negative relationship between anxiety and attitude, exam motivation, and exam success. According to another result, male students' attitudes towards open-ended exam question typy were more positive than female students. It was determined that the anxiety levels of male students regarding open-ended, short-answer, true-false, and matching exam question types were lower than female students.