Anxiety and Answer-Changing Behavior in Nursing Students

Abstract

Background: Anxiety in college students, including nursing students, has increased significantly and has been implicated as a cause of lower academic achievement and answer-changing behavior. This study investigated the relationship between student anxiety and answer-changing behaviors. Method: One hundred thirty-one nursing students from a large midwestern baccalaureate nursing program were enrolled in a quasiexperimental prospective research study. Data included demographics, analysis of student movement through the examination to identify changed answers, and completion of the PROMIS Short Form version 1.0–Emotional Distress–Anxiety 8a tool. Results: PROMIS anxiety scores did not covary significantly with the rate of answer-changing behaviors including rate of negative changes. Conclusion: This study did not identify a relationship between students' answer-changing behavior and anxiety. Future studies should evaluate other characteristics, such as confidence and level of examination preparation, as possible reasons for changing answers. [ J Nurs Educ . 2023;62(6):351–354.]