The Collective Influence of Intolerance of Uncertainty, Cognitive Test Anxiety, and Academic Self-Handicapping on Learner Outcomes: Evidence for a Process Model.

Research on achievement emotions and behaviors has routinely demonstrated connections to student performance. This study approaches the work from a perspective of greater integration of multiple variables and examines potential nonlinear relationships among intolerance of uncertainty, cognitive test anxiety, academic self-handicapping, and student performance. Using structured equations modeling and generalized additive modeling, our results confirm better predictions of student performance when using both multivariate and curvilinear analyses. Optimal prediction of GPA was achieved when considering all three variables in conjunction through a serial mediation model. Specifically, the analyses demonstrated that intolerance of uncertainty tended to activate learners' cognitive test anxiety, which increased the potential of engaging in academic self-handicapping, resulting in lower levels of GPA. The results are consistent with process models of test anxiety that identify the critical role of learners' appraisals of evaluative stressors as well as the coping strategies employed when stressors are activated. Finally, curvilinear analyses confirmed that student GPA was related to academic self-handicapping and cognitive test anxiety in complex ways but largely demonstrated that as the levels of self-handicapping and/or cognitive test anxiety increased, performance declined. However, the degree of severity in reduced GPA was most severe for learners with elevations in both.

Performance and Symptom Validity in Outpatient Pediatric Neuropsychological Evaluations.

This study aimed to clarify the value of using different types of validity measures in pediatric neuropsychological evaluations. We examined the relationship between performance (PVT) and symptom (SVT) validity tests as well as demographic variables and results from a screening test of learning and memory (i.e. Child and Adolescent Memory Profile [ChAMP]) in a mixed pediatric sample (n = 103). There was minimal overlap between PVT and SVT failures. Regression analyses demonstrated that PVT results, parental education, and history of special education were statistically significant predictors of ChAMP results, whereas SVT results were not.