Cognitive-Behavioral Group Counseling on Reducing Test Anxiety of Students with Negative High School Perfectionism

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of group-based cognitive-behavioral therapy on reducing test anxiety in negative high school students in Iran in the academic year 2014-2015. This study was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest with control group and the statistical population was all high school male students in Iran. The sample consisted of 30 subjects who scored high on the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) and Positive and Negative Perfectionism (PANPS) questionnaires and were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received cognitive-behavioral group training for 8 sessions, one week per week, and the control group received no intervention. The instruments of this study were test anxiety (TAI) and positive and negative perfectionism (PANPS). The results of the analysis of covariance showed that there was a significant difference between post-test anxiety scores in the two experimental and control groups (P <0.05). The results also showed a significant difference between the experimental and control group scores in both positive and negative perfectionism dimensions (P <0.05). Based on the findings, it can be concluded that cognitive-behavioral group training was effective in reducing test anxiety and negative perfectionism

Keywords:

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy , Test Anxiety , Perfectionism