The impact of test anxiety on university students’ performance: A case study at the University of Prishtina, English Department

Testing has been recognized as a vital and enormously effective instrument to decide on students’ performance at all levels of education, particularly at the university level, to evaluate their knowledge, accomplishments, and skills. Nonetheless, this evaluation method has proved to consist of various disadvantages and one of the main important ones to be considered is anxiety. Therefore, this study aims is to investigate the main causes of test anxiety, the relationship between test anxiety and students’ performance as well as to provide some strategies on how to deal with and prevent test anxiety. The participants of this study are students of the English Department, University Of ‘Hasan Prishtina’. This study implements a mixed methods approach consisting of qualitative and quantitative data. The results of the present study are relevant to all the students who tend to suffer from various forms and symptoms of test anxiety by showing the relationship between test anxiety and academic performance, as well as providing some ways that help to lower this negative impact.