Sleep time, test anxiety and aggressiveness in university students

The goals of this study were, firstly, to determine whether pre-test anxiety is associated with differences in hours of sleep during the previous night; secondly, to examine whether such anxiety is related to the presence of aggressiveness; and, thirdly, to determine whether aggressiveness may be considered a relevant variable in the possible relationship between partial sleep reduction and test anxiety. In addition, differences as a function of gender were analyzed in the target variables. The study sample was made up of 137 undergraduate students before taking an exam. Our results confirm the association between sleep reduction the previous night and test anxiety as well as that between aggressiveness and test anxiety. No interaction effects were observed, but sleep reduction and aggressiveness were good predictors of test anxiety. No significant gender differences were observed in hours of sleep the previous night, aggressiveness and test-anxiety, but there were differences in anxiety as a function of the hours of sleep.