Exploring the psychometric properties of the French revised test anxiety + regulatory scale in Swiss secondary school students

IntroductionAlthough test anxiety had traditionally been conceptualized as composed of negative dimensions, the French Revised Test Anxiety + Regulatory scale (FRTA + R) includes a noteworthy positive dimension which represents the regulatory component of anxiety. Perceived control is thus supposed to reflect a potential coping capacity.MethodThis study investigates the psychometric properties of the FRTA + R using confirmatory factor analysis, as well as its reliability and invariance across gender and grade levels in a sample of 259 secondary school students from a French-speaking canton of Switzerland (Mage = 13.51, SD = 1.05; 51% girls). The aim is also to identify test anxiety profiles using cluster analysis.ResultsThe main findings support the five-factor structure of FRTA + R (CFI = 0.97; TLI = 0.97; RMSEA = 0.047) and confirm invariance across gender and grade levels at both configural, metric, and scalar levels. While the reliability of the scale is broadly supported, the test-irrelevant thinking factor presents relatively heterogeneous factor loadings, suggesting a possible lack of precision and stability. Findings from latent mean comparisons showed that girls reported higher levels on three dimensions (i.e., Bodily symptoms, Tension, and Worry) as well as lower levels of perceived control than boys, while 9th graders also reported higher levels on these three negative dimensions compared to 10th and 11th graders. A preferred 3-cluster solution was identified, corresponding to low (41% of whom 66% boys), medium (37% of whom 60% girls), and high (22% of whom 72% girls) levels of test anxiety.DiscussionAlthough the pertinence of defining test-irrelevant thinking and perceived control as a full-fledged dimension of test anxiety is questioned, results contribute to the extensive body of research supporting gender differences and are also discussed in terms of practical implications and benefits of FRTA + R

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements