Effects of caffeine and anxiety level on psychomotor performance

Abstract

The study investigated the effects of caffeine and anxiety level on psychomotor performance. Sixty-eight (68) volunteer male and female students who were randomly selected from different academic faculties at the University of Lagos participated in this study. Their ages ranged from 18 to 32 years, with body weights between 55 and 65 kg. Pre-test, post-test control group experimental design was used in this research. The independent variables are caffeine and anxiety level of the participants. While the dependent variable is the psychomotor performance of the participants. Parametric statistical tests, including analysis of covariance test, t-dependent test and t-independent test were used for the data analyses. The results showed that low anxiety level group performed better on psychomotor task after taking caffeine content: (p<.05, df=33, ct=5.32, st=1.7); high anxiety level group did not perform poorly on psychomotor task after the administration of caffeine:(p>0.05, df=33, ct=1.51, st=1.7); males in high anxiety level group performed better than females in high anxiety level group on psychomotor task after taking caffeine: (p<0.05, df=33, ct=2.55, st=1.7); females with low anxiety level did not perform better than males with low anxiety level on psychomotor task after the administration of caffeine: (p>0.05, df=33, ct=0.17, st=1.7) and lastly, high anxiety level group performed better than the low anxiety level group before and after taking caffeine: (p<0.05, df=66, ct=2.13, st=1.67) It was generally found that caffeine affects different people in different ways with regards to their anxiety levels. The findings were discussed in terms of their potentials in enhancing our knowledge of issues concerning the use of caffeine by people of different levels of anxiety in pursuit of psychomotor tasks.

Keywords: caffeine, anxiety level, psychomotor performance, effects