Evaluation of an Online Group Intervention to Improve Test-Taking Self-Efficacy and Reduce Licensure Test Anxiety

ABSTRACT

We evaluated whether a synchronous online group intervention, using the Association for Social Work Boards Group Review Practice Test© items, increased students’ LMSW licensure test-taking confidence and decreased their test anxiety.  A non-equivalent comparison group study was used to measure change in 59 graduate students’ confidence in test-taking and test anxiety.  Almost 45% of students reported test anxiety in the clinical range at pretest.  Using a repeated measures GLM, we found that students in the intervention group experienced a significant increase in confidence from pretest posttest.  For overall anxiety, impairment anxiety, and worry anxiety, students in the intervention group experienced less anxiety over time, and students in the comparison group experienced more anxiety over time.  Implications for programs are discussed.

Notes

¹ The term self-efficacy is often used interchangeably with the colloquial term confidence, which does not “specify what the certainty is about” (Bandura, 1997, p. 382). Therefore, when we use the term confidence, we mean the strength of students’ belief as well as their certainty about their test-taking ability.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carol Coohey

Carol Coohey, MSW, PhD, is professor and

Stephen P. Cummings

Stephen P. Cummings, MSW, LISW, is clinical assistant professor at the University of Iowa.