Humidity, anxiety, and test performance: Maintaining equity in Tropical climates

Abstract

With the advent of global warming, psychological tests are increasingly administered under high levels of environmental humidity, which may combine with test anxiety to disadvantage millions students worldwide. With temperature held constant, 42 Northern Territory (Australian) undergraduates took basic Digit Span and Stroop tests, under conditions of high/low humidity and high/low test rapport (which operationally defined test anxiety). Digit Span performance was significantly depressed both by anxiety and humidity, while Stroop performance was depressed by test anxiety, and marginally affected by an interaction between anxiety and humidity (the latter attenuating negative impact from the former). In the Tropics, the impact of test environment may vary substantially depending on the type of cognitive demands made by the particular assessment task.