The Roles of Academic Beliefs and Value Orientations in Threat Appraisal of Academic Anxiety

While excessive academic anxiety significantly impairs student learning and well-being, the foundational cognitive antecedents that predict divergent threat appraisals and anxiety responses remain insufficiently theorized. Drawing on Control–Value Theory and the Transactional Model, this study proposes a Belief–Value–Appraisal (BVA) Model, which contends that academic beliefs function as the key predictors of anxiety by shaping students’ value orientations and threat appraisals. To delineate key beliefs most salient to academic anxiety, we conceptualized a framework categorized by belief referents (i.e., the specific targets of students' convictions), covering: (1) academic competition, (2) personal ability, (3) outcome uncertainty, and (4) the structural nature of competence. We empirically tested this framework using path analysis with a sample of 1,391 high school students. The results primarily support the BVA model: zero-sum competitive beliefs are associated with increased anxiety via a cascade of extrinsic value orientations and elevated threat appraisals, whereas beliefs in conformity to natural outcomes serve as protective factors by negatively predicting this maladaptive chain. By articulating the BVA Model, this research illustrates that academic beliefs represent a foundational cognitive antecedent of the appraisal processes that generate academic anxiety. This perspective offers new avenues for educational intervention, emphasizing the cultivation of adaptive academic beliefs in educational practice.