Comparing of the Effectiveness of Mindfulness and Working Memory Education on Test Anxiety of Junior Female Students

Abstract

Considering the importance of test anxiety in female students, the present research was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of mindfulness and working memory education on test anxiety of junior female students. The current research was a semi-experimental with a pre-test, post-test and one-month follow-up design with a control group. The research population was all junior female students in Bojnord city in the 2022-23 academic years. The sample of this study was 45 people who were selected by available sampling method and randomly assigned into three groups of 15 people. The first experimental group underwent 8 sessions of 120 minute of mindfulness education and the second experimental group underwent 15 sessions of 60 minute of working memory education and during this time the control group did not receive any training. In this study, in addition to the demographic information form was used from the Friedman and Bendas-Jacob test anxiety scale (1997). The data of the present research were analyzed by the methods of chi-square, analysis of variance with repeated measurements and Bonferroni post hoc test in SPSS-21 software. The findings showed that both methods of mindfulness and working memory education reduced the test anxiety components including social derogation, cognitive obstruction and tenseness of junior female students and result remained in the follow-up stage (P<0.001), but there was no significant difference between the mentioned intervention methods in reducing their test anxiety components (P>0.05). Considering the effectiveness of both mindfulness and working memory education methods in reducing test anxiety and the lack of significant difference between them, it is suggested that counselors and psychologists use both methods to reduce exam anxiety.