Intervention Program To Reduce The Level Of Test Anxiety In A Primary School Class. A Pilot Study

Laura Bochis,Florica Sandra

doi:10.18662/rrem/69

Abstract

The aim of study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention program to reduce the level of test anxiety in a primary school class in the urban environment (N = 25, 2nd class). The level of test anxiety was evaluated using the Test Anxiety in Children, developed by Wren and Benson in 2004. The intervention program took place over a period of six weeks with a frequency of three times a week, consisting of six activities implemented in school in the personal development discipline with the help of the formative stories created for the purpose of the program, six activities based on independent work in solving some assessment task of the Language and Communication and Mathematics disciplines of didactic auxiliaries in order to prepare pupils for the Second Class National Assessment and six self-employed activities in homework completion after school classes. The program's effectiveness was performed by analyzing the two-stage results of the test using the intragroup comparison test. The results obtained lead to the conclusion that the level of test anxiety in second-class students in the experimental group is lower in the posttest (t = 2,328, p = 0,029), and the magnitude of the effect obtained indicates a moderate value. The results on subscales indicate statistically significant differences in the thought subscale (t = 2.54, p = 0.027) with lower posttest scores, and the effect size is moderate too.

Highlights

Testing is a central but debated tool in formal education that is used to determine whether a pupil has successfully understood the taught material (Nyroos, Korhonen, Linnanmäki, & Svens-Liavåg, 2012)
Most authors view the test of anxiety as being composed of two dimensions known as emotionality, an affective-physiological dimension, and worry, and a cognitive dimension (Cassady & Johnson, 2002) involves negative thoughts, self-criticism or concerns about the negative consequences of failure occur during test situations (Zeidner, 2007)
At the declarative level, students were able to identify the personal attributes they should have in school assessment situations, at the practical level, the program had an average influence in lowering concern as a component of testing anxiety

Summary

Introduction

Testing is a central but debated tool in formal education that is used to determine whether a pupil has successfully understood the taught material (Nyroos, Korhonen, Linnanmäki, & Svens-Liavåg, 2012). Teachers may not mark the anxiety about testing as long as in the primary cycle the notation based on a fourrating system (very good, well, sufficient, insufficient) does not indicate poor results at students with anxiety towards testing In this way, students continue to develop coping mechanisms individually to cope with the situation in school assessment. Anxiety test refers to the set of phenomenological, physiological, and behavioral responses that accompany concern about possible negative consequences or failure on an examination or similar evaluative situation (Zeidner & Matthews, 2003) This involves excessive fear, negative cognitions of one's own ability to deal with the evaluative situation, thoughts with regard to failure, and apprehension before, during and / or after the test situation (Robu, 2011: 32). Emotionality describes a person's appraisal of his or her physiological state such as tension, tight muscles, accelerated heart rate or nervousness (Zeidner, 2007)

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