The present study examined the psychometric properties of the short Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI-5) in a Dutch adolescent sample. The sample consisted of 2063 secondary school students (mean age 13.6 years, 48% girls) who filled out a battery of screening questionnaires for a routine health check. We investigated structural validity with a confirmatory factor analysis, scale reliability with internal consistency coefficients, and construct validity with hypotheses testing and convergent validity. The proposed one-factor structure fitted well in the present sample. However, there was an indication of measurement variance for gender. Scale reliability was high (ω = 0.88), and sufficient positive correlations were found between TAI-5 scores and anxiety, depression, worry, executive functioning, and sleep problems (r ranging from 0.36 to 0.56). Girls had significantly higher test anxiety scores than boys (d = 0.47). The present study provided evidence for the validity and reliability of TAI-5 scores in a general population of Dutch adolescents.
Keywords: Test anxiety; adolescents; reliability; screening; validity.