Comparing the Effectiveness of Mental-Grammatical Imagery Education and Uncertainty Tolerance Education on Students' Test Anxiety

Abstract

Purpose: The test anxiety has a great negative impact on other academic and non-academic variables, therefore, should look for educational and therapeutic solutions to reduce students' test anxiety. As a result, the current research was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of mental-grammatical imagery education and uncertainty tolerance education on students' test anxiety.Methodology: This was a semi-experimental study with two experimental groups and one control group, with a pre-test, post-test and two-month follow-up plan. In this study, the research population was all 12th grade female students of governmental and non-governmental schools in Bojnourd city in the 2022-2023 academic years. The sample of the present study was 45 students who were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly replaced in three equal groups (15 people in each group). The experimental group received 12 sessions of 90-minute with the mental-grammatical imagery education method, and the second experimental group received 9 sessions of 90-minute with the uncertainty tolerance education method based on the cognitive behavioral approach, and during this time, the control group did not receive any training. The data were collected with Sarason's test anxiety questionnaire (1985) and analyzed with the methods of analysis variance with repeated measure and Bonferroni's post hoc test in SPSS-25 software.Findings: The findings showed that there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of reducing students' test anxiety (P>0.05). In addition, both methods of mental-grammatical imagery and uncertainty tolerance education significantly reduced students' test anxiety in the post-test and follow-up stages (P<0.001).Conclusion: Considering the effectiveness of both methods of mental-grammatical imagery education and uncertainty tolerance education in reducing students' test anxiety, school counselors and psychologists can use mental-grammatical imagery education and uncertainty tolerance education methods to reduce test anxiety.