Test anxiety can hinder students from achieving their full potential in evaluative situations, such as tests or examinations. Converging evidence suggests that performance-related worries impair the working memory of these students. However, the mechanisms by which worries affect the working memory of test-anxious students remain poorly understood. The present work aimed to fill this gap by comparing the electroencephalography (EEG) of lower and higher test-anxious students performing a cognitive task in both a low and a high pressure condition. Two studies addressed the response monitoring in test-anxious students by analyzing the error-related negativity (ERN) – an event-related potential occurring shortly after an erroneous response. Results revealed that the ERN was enhanced by performance pressure in higher but not in lower test-anxious students. The third study assessed the working memory costs of performance pressure by analyzing frontal midline theta (FMΘ) – a signal known to reflect working memory processes. Results showed that FMΘ was increased by performance pressure, especially in students with higher test anxiety. Across studies, self-reported worries during the task were unrelated to EEG measures and test-anxious students did not show performance impairments. Taken together, results demonstrate that test-anxious students exhibit increased neural activity under performance pressure, suggesting that they need compensatory effort to maintain performance in evaluative situations.
