An Intervention Study Of Middle School Students’ Test Anxiety By Mindfulness Training And Relaxation Training

Objectives:This thesis aims to explore the Test Anxiety levels of middle school students, as well as to analyse the differences and similarities of Mindfulness Training and Relaxation Training in relieving Text Anxiety, in the hope that more effective ways of lowering Test Anxiety could be discovered.Material and methods:l.The forecasting research of test anxiety was done with Test Anxiety Scale (TAS) on students from Yang Cun NO.1Middle School.147effective questionnaires were received in total.2.Participants were recruited via outdoor advertising.37valid subjects were selected and divided randomly into3groups:12in the control group,13in the mindfulness group, and12in the relaxation group. TAS and S-TAI were adopted as the pre-post test.3.No intervention was conducted to the control group. Mindfulness training was received for the mindfulness group (sessions took place on Tuesdays for7times,40minutes each time), whilst relaxation activities were practiced in the relaxation group (sessions took place on Mondays for7times,20minutes for each time).Results:1.Test anxiety state of students in forecasting research The test anxiety detection rate was86.5%, in which19.7%are of mild anxiety,56.5%moderate anxiety, and23.8%serious anxiety.2.The change of test anxiety after intervention Compared with that of pre-intervention, test anxiety levels showed significant decrease in both mindfulness training and relaxation groups (p<0.05), whereas no significant difference was found in that of the control group (p>0.05).3.The change of State-Trait Anxiety after intervention Compared with that of pre-intervention, the State Anxiety in the control group increased markedly (p<0.05), but no significant differences were found in mindfulness training and relaxation groups (p>0.05). Nor were any significant differences found in the control and relaxation groups on Trait Anxiety. However, the anxiety levels decreased remarkably in the mindfulness training group (p<0.01).4.Analysis of variance and Post Hoc Test There were no significant group differences found on the State Anxiety at post-intervention. But significant post-intervention group differences were found for both TAS and T-AI. Post hoc tests for test anxiety demonstrated that the meditation post-intervention group mean was significantly lower than the mean of relaxation group (p<.005), but no significant difference was found between mindfulness training group and control group. For Trait Anxiety, post hoc tests demonstrated that the meditation group post-intervention mean was significantly lower than that of the control group (p<0.05), the mindfulness training group did not significantly differ from the relaxation group.Conclusions:1.Both mindfulness training and relaxation can effectively relieve test anxiety, although mindfulness training has been found to be more efficient.2.Neither of the mindfulness training or relaxation has been found to be effective in relieving state anxiety. However, mindfulness training has been found to be more efficient than relaxation in terms of relieving trait anxiety.