This study evaluated longitudinal change in student worry using the Student Worry Questionnaire-30 (SWQ-30), an instrument that represents worry as six separate factors: (1) Worrisome Thinking, (2) Financial-Related Concerns, (3) Significant Others' Well-Being, (4) Academic Concerns, (5) Social Adequacy Concerns, and (6) Generalized Anxiety Symptoms. Prior to evaluating longitudinal change, the factor structure of the SWQ-30 was examined using four cross-sectional independent samples. A best-fitting six-factor model was found that removed four redundant items from the original 30-item instrument.

This six-factor 26-item model was then fit to data from a longitudinal sample of students who completed the measure as entering freshmen and second-semester sophomores. Evidence for full configural and metric invariance was found. When the data were tested for scalar invariance, one item from each of the following subscales was found to be scalar non-invariant: Worrisome Thinking, Social Adequacy Concern, and Financial-Related Concern. Additionally, most of the items from the Generalized Anxiety Symptoms factor were found to be scalar non-invariant, thus making the latent mean difference for the factor uninterpretable.

Overall, interpretable latent mean differences and stability estimates provided evidence that student worry was stable over time, although students appeared to decrease in the degree to which they worried about social adequacy. These findings suggest that some aspects of worry and the infamous sophomore slump may be unrelated phenomena. In sum, the SWQ-30 is a promising measure of multidimensional student worry; however, it has not received adequate empirical study. Furthermore, given the dearth of empirical research examining the stability of student worry over time and the unique characteristics of the samples under study, future research must be conducted to better uncover the link between worry and sophomore slump.