A CLOSER LOOK AT THE REVISED CHILDREN’S MANIFEST ANXIETY SCALE, SECOND EDITION (RCMAS-2) PERFORMANCE ANXIETY CLUSTER

Abstract

The present study explored the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale-Second Edition (RCMAS-2) Performance Anxiety cluster for the possibility of construct bias across gender and age, latent mean differences across gender and age groups, internal consistency reliability for its scores with a U.S. sample, and convergent evidence of validity for its scores with a sample of 1,002 students, ages 7 to 19 years. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results supported a one-factor structure for the Performance Anxiety cluster. The preponderance of the evidence from CFA and reliability methods suggested bias did not exist across gender and age groups. Latent means comparisons showed that females and older students reported higher levels of performance anxiety in comparison to males and younger students. In addition, the results indicated that the Performance Anxiety cluster’s scores have acceptable internal consistency reliability and that there is convergent evidence for the validity of the cluster’s scores. Limitations, future research directions, and practical implications of the study are discussed.