A Comparison of the Effect of Systematic Motivational Group Counseling Program and Metacognitive Strategies Training upon Exam Anxiety and Academic Adaptability in Female Middle School Students

The present research has aimed to compare the effect of systematic motivational group counseling program and training on metacognitive strategies upon exam anxiety and academic adaptability in female middle school students in Tehran. For this purpose, 36 female senior high school students from Tehran's 12th District in the school year of 2018-2019 were selected by means of multistage random sampling. The present research took an experimental approach, and pre-tests and post-tests were used along with an expanded control group and random substitution. The participants completed Sarason's test anxiety scale (1980) and the Student Adaptation to College questionnaire (1989) as the research tool. The systematic motivation group counseling program and the training on metacognitive strategies involved ten 90-minute sessions for the test groups, while the control group received no training of any kind. Post-tests were given to all three groups after the training had ended. Variance analysis with repeated measures was used for data analysis. The results indicate both intervention methods to have decreased exam anxiety in students and enhanced their academic adaptability, with the difference between the test groups and the control group for both variables being significant at 0.01 level. In other words, both approaches -- systematic counseling and training on metacognitive strategies led to reduced exam anxiety and higher academic adaptability. No significant difference was observed between the extent of effectiveness in the test groups (P > 0.01).