IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v14y2024i4p21582440241296609.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect of the Students’ Test Anxiety Prevention Program on Students’ Experiences of Test Anxiety: A Mixed-Methods Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Jvan Abdulbaqi
  • Gizem Oneri Uzun

Abstract

This study aims to introduce the Students’ Test Anxiety Prevention Program (STAPP), an intervention for test anxiety for university students in Iraq. We also evaluated its effectiveness against test and state anxiety. The STAPP is a short three-session intervention program comprising expressive emotional dialog, psychoeducation, and educational and cognitive–behavioral therapy techniques. Numerous studies have shown the effectiveness of cognitive–behavioral techniques among other populations; however, most interventions in Iraq focus on posttraumatic stress disorder. In this explanatory sequential mixed-methods study, we used an experimental design in the quantitative phase and conducted a focus group discussion in the qualitative phase. The study was conducted among a sample of Iraqi university students, as there is scarce research on test anxiety interventions among the Iraqi student population. Convenience sampling was used to select 60 participants—35 women and 25 men—randomly assigned to the control or intervention groups. The test-retest approach was used to compare test scores and state anxiety for both groups. The focus group discussion included seven members from the intervention group. The results suggest that STAPP is effective in reducing test anxiety. However, no significant changes were observed in state anxiety in the post-test phase. State anxiety is transient, whereas test anxiety represents a persistent trait. Participants displayed elevated levels of state anxiety, which may be attributed to coronavirus disease 2019-related stressors. Intervention programs should include exercises that facilitate transferring and generalizing learned material in various anxiety-provoking situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Jvan Abdulbaqi & Gizem Oneri Uzun, 2024. "Effect of the Students’ Test Anxiety Prevention Program on Students’ Experiences of Test Anxiety: A Mixed-Methods Experiment," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(4), pages 21582440241, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:14:y:2024:i:4:p:21582440241296609
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440241296609
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440241296609
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440241296609?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:14:y:2024:i:4:p:21582440241296609. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.