Mediating Role of Perfectionism between Thought Control Strategies and Test Anxiety

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between thought control strategies and test anxiety: the mediating role of perfectionism among male and female students of high schools for the gifted in the first and second districts of Kerman in ۲۰۱۷. It was a descriptive and correlational study. The statistical population of the study included female and male students of high schools for the gifted in the first and second districts of Kerman in the age range of ۱۲ to ۱۸ years old with a total sample size of ۲۴۰۰ subjects. Considering the population size and the sample size, a total number of ۳۳۱ subjects were selected according to Morgan's table. Participants were selected randomly in a multi-stage cluster sampling and pun within each cluster by a simple random method. The research tools were the Thought Control Questionnaire of Wells and Matthews (۱۹۹۴), the Test Anxiety questionnaire of Sarason (۱۹۵۷) and Frost et al. (۱۹۹۰) questionnaire on perfectionism. Research results using Pearson's correlation coefficient and the indirect effect (mediator variable) using bootstrap method in Preacher and Hayes’ Macro SPSS program (۲۰۰۴) showed that thought control had a significant effect on perfectionism and perfectionism had a significant effect on test anxiety. However, thought control strategies did not have a significant effect on test anxiety.

Keywords:

Thought Control Strategies , test anxiety , perfectionism