Reducing test anxiety among school-aged adolescents: a field experiment

Abstract

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of a multimodal and information technology (IT)-delivered intervention for test anxiety. Participants were randomly allocated to an intervention or waiting list group. Test anxiety was measured pre- and post-intervention and academic buoyancy, a construct that refers to students’ capacity to withstand academic challenge and pressure, as a covariate. In the intervention group, 13.7% of participants completed the full intervention programme comprising six sessions; 25.5% partially completed the programme (one or more sessions); and 60.8% of participants chose not to complete any sessions. Results showed that, after completing the intervention and when controlling for academic buoyancy, highly test anxious students showed a reduction in the worry and tension components of test anxiety, relative to those who did not complete the intervention. The findings suggest that the intervention may offer highly test anxious students a means of reducing their anxiety that does not rely on face-to-face delivery.

Keywords:

• test anxiety
• worry
• academic buoyancy
• multimodal intervention
• IT

Acknowledgements

Development work for STEPS was funded by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), Manchester, UK. The authors would like to thank Neil Stringer at the Centre for Educational Research and Policy at AQA for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Notes

1. The researchers included 48 students who had completed the first four sessions which were the critical sessions in relation to reducing test anxiety. For expediency the students who completed STEPS with these additional students are referred to as the intervention group.