Perfectionism and performance anxiety among university students
The road to the coveted diploma is paved with challenges and constraints that may interfere with the psychological well-being and academic performance of university students by exacerbating certain personal characteristics. Particularly, several students are setting performance standards that are virtually unattainable and, in some cases, accompanied by anxiety. Thus, the objective of this systematic literature review is to explore the link between university student’s perfectionism and test anxiety. In order to do so, the databases ERIC, PubMed, PsycArticles, PsycINFO, and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses were used for the research of French or English empirical studies, published or not between 1950 and 2011 inclusively. Seven articles were selected. The results strongly suggest that self-oriented perfectionism is not significantly related to test anxiety whereas socially-prescribed perfectionism is significantly positively correlated to it. However, shades are introduced in order to have a more realistic representation of how this link expresses itself in the university environment (a microcosm of a competitive society where performance is not only strongly encouraged but required).