Interactive effects of student anxiety, achievement orientation, and teacher behavior on student achievement and attitude

Explored the effects of student personality and teacher behavior on student achievement and attitude. An experienced social studies teacher taught a 2-wk unit to 4 classes of 9th graders (103 students) according to 4 treatments that varied in amount of structure and student participation. Students completed the Verbal Meaning test of the Primary Mental Abilities Test, the Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, the Anxiety scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and 2 scales of the California Psychological Inventory at the beginning of the study and achievement, attitude, and retention measures at the end of the study. Teacher behavior was observed to demonstrate fidelity of treatment implementation. Stepwise regression analysis indicated that neither personality nor treatments alone contributed significantly to the prediction of achievement, but interactions between them did. Treatment effects depended on the student's verbal ability, manifest anxiety, and achievement orientation. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).