Compare the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction program and study skills training on reducing test anxiety of female students

The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of the mindfulness-based stress reduction method and educating study skills on the reduction of test anxiety in second grade secondary school female students of Ahvaz city. In this research, the used research method was semi-experimental with the pre-test and post-test design together with the control group. The statistical population of this study includes all second grade secondary school female students. To select the sample, the test anxiety questionnaire was first implemented among the students. Then, among students who had high test anxiety scores (a standard deviation higher than the mean of the group), 45 female students were selected as available and randomly, they were assigned to two experimental and one control groups (15 each). Two weeks after the last intervention session, the Spielberger(1980)  test anxiety questionnaire  was re-implemented as the post-test. The stress-reduction training program based on mindfulness and study skills was conducted for 8 sessions, each session for 90 minutes and twice a week for the experimental group. The control group did not receive any training. Data were analyzed using such as ANCOVA and MANCOVA variance analysis tests. The findings showed that the education of stress-reduction training program based on mindfulness and study skills, both were effective in reducing the students' test anxiety and there was a significant difference between two experimental groups so that in this case, the education of stress-reduction training program based on mindfulness was more effective in reducing test anxiety in compare to the study skills method. Therefore, it can be resulted that although both the educational programs are effective in reducing the students' test anxiety, the education of stress-reduction training program based on mindfulness is relevantly more effective.