The effectiveness of threatening cognitive bias Modification on the reduction of test anxiety in twelfth grade students

Test anxiety is one of the most common mental disorders that have a detrimental role on mental health and educational students. So, the aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of threatening cognitive bias correction on the reduction of test anxiety.

In this quasi-experimental study, statistical community was Twelfth grade girl students in district 3 of Tehran city during 2018-2019. 300 students were selected by cluster random sampling and Sarason questionnaire was used for screening test anxiety subjects and dot probe was used for cognitive bias. Finally, 32 participants were randomly assigned to the experimental (16) and control (16) groups. In the experimental group, bias adjustment was performed in 8 sessions, before and after the intervention, test anxiety was measured.

The results showed that the mean scores of test anxiety in the experimental group decreased significantly from 23.93 to 17.75  and in the control group it increased from 23.87 to 24.06 and was unchanged. The results of univariate analysis of covariance showed that the modification of threat-related cognitive bias was effective in reducing the test anxiety of 12th grade students.

It seems that a cognitive bias modification program could have clinical implications to facilitate the release of attention from the threat in the treatment of test anxiety.