Anxiety is a response to natural life stressors and can be useful in a variety of situations. Most people experience balanced levels of anxiety. However, anxiety in the extremes (low and high) can have disadvantageous life impacts, which may be relevant in the realm of academia. Anxiety has the potential to impact academic attitudes through a variety of mechanisms, with both very high and very low levels of anxiety having the potential to negatively impact academic attitudes and performance.

This project will identify if there is an association between anxiety and academic attitudes, and will address the potential for a non-linear pattern in this association. We will use data collected from a cross-sectional survey of 232 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate-level courses in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass Amherst. In this survey, anxiety was measured using the validated GAD-7 survey, and academic attitudes were determined using the Academic Performance Scale.

We hypothesize that individuals with moderate anxiety scores in the mid-range of the GAD-7 will demonstrate more positive academic attitudes, while for those with scores at the extreme ends of the range, academic attitudes may be more negative. Our results will help to inform further research related to the association between anxiety and academic performance. It is important to understand how different levels of anxiety affect academic performance, especially if the association is more complex than a simple, linear pattern of increasing anxiety having a steady, dose-response effect on academic performance.