Students with important papers, projects or other assignments due on a particular date often become anxious as the due date approaches. The less work a student has done on the assignment, the more anxious he or she is likely to become. For middle schoolers, this may be a science fair project that the student did not begin in time to finish before the deadline. Likewise, if the defense date for a doctoral student's dissertation is coming up and the student still hasn't finished all of his or her research, anxiety may make it more difficult to complete the dissertation and can affect the quality of the final product.
Test anxiety is a particular form of anxiety that affects students preparing for a test--especially when that test makes up a significant portion of their grade. This type of student anxiety becomes more serious when it actually affects a student's performance on an exam. Cramming the night before a test instead of studying the material regularly throughout the term leads to this kind of anxiety. Test anxiety may even have physical repercussions such as headaches or nausea.
Teenage students who are beginning to date for the first time may experience anxiety based on difficulties with a significant other. Sometimes, this anxiety crosses over into a student's academic life, affecting his or her performance in school. Conflicts within a friendship can have similar consequences.
Problems within a student's household can cause anxiety that leads to poorer grades in school. Young children whose parents are going through a divorce, for example, are more likely to neglect their schoolwork than children whose families are still together.
On the other hand, parents can also put too much pressure on children to succeed. This can cause so much anxiety that the opposite of what the parents wanted occurs--the child's performance in school declines.
Sometimes, new surroundings can be intimidating and cause anxiety. For example, children whose families have moved to a new town may become anxious about making new friends in a strange place. Similarly, college freshmen can get anxious about living in a new city, being away from their families, and the new responsibilities that come with studying at the collegiate level.