Challenge and threat appraisals in high school science: investigating the roles of psychological and physiological factors

Abstract

While completing a science test and science survey, 155 high school students wore a biometric wristband (measuring electrodermal activity; EDA) and self-reported their science self-efficacy and science anxiety. Adopting a challenge-threat appraisal perspective and latent profile analysis, we explored how students were psychologically (self-efficacy, anxiety) and physiologically (EDA) oriented to science. We identified three groups (profiles), representing different challenge-threat profiles. The largest group was the ‘composed challenge-and-threat’ group (modest EDA, average anxiety, average self-efficacy). The next largest was the ‘aroused high-threat’ group (elevated EDA, elevated anxiety, low self-efficacy). The third represented ‘composed high-challenge’ students (modest EDA, elevated self-efficacy, low anxiety). The aroused high-threat group scored significantly lower than composed high-challenge and composed challenge-and-threat groups in science test performance and flow. Notably, the composed high-challenge and composed challenge-and-threat groups did not significantly differ in test performance; however, the composed high-challenge group was significantly higher in flow than the composed challenge-and-threat group.