The Effects of Metacognitive Education on Test Anxiety and Perceived Self-Efficacy in Female Third-Grade High School Students

Test anxiety is a disturbing response that occurs in threatening situations related to student performance appraisal. Thus, test anxiety is associated with poor academic performance. The focus of test anxiety is doubt about self-performance and self-efficacy and concern about the consequences; it significantly reduces the student's ability to cope with the problem-solving situation and his inability. The greater the anxiety in this case, the lower the academic self-efficacy. Furthermore, anxiety is an unpleasant experience that will affect an individual's beliefs, attitudes, and motivations. Students' experiences during school years, such as test anxiety and their performance at the time of assessment, affect their sense of self-efficacy and shape their sense of self-efficacy and competence. In turn, it may affect academic achievement. The development of metacognitive strategies leads to the learner's perception of competence and self-efficacy. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effects of metacognitive education on test anxiety and perceived self-efficacy in female students.

This was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest-follow-up and a control group design. The study's statistical population included female high school students in Tehran City, Iran, in 2019. Accordingly, 28 eligible individuals (per group) were selected using the convenience sampling method. Next, they were divided into the experimental and control groups by the block randomization of the field of study. The study's inclusion criteria included not receiving simultaneous intervention directly or indirectly to reduce test anxiety, informed satisfaction, and willingness to cooperate by the adolescents and their families in this study. The exclusion criteria were family's non-cooperation during treatment and absence from more than two sessions. Tools included the Self-Efficacy Scale (Sherer et al., 1982) and Test Anxiety Questionnaire (Abolghasemi et al., 1996). Five 120-minute metacognitive training sessions were performed for the experimental group; however, no intervention was provided for the control group. Moreover, the obtained data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, & standard deviation) and inferential statistics, including repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Bonferroni post hoc test in SPSS at the significance level of 0.05.

The obtained results indicated the effects of intervention in the experimental group on test anxiety and perceived self-efficacy as significant (p<0.001). The effect of time on test anxiety and perceived self-efficacy was significant (p<0.001). The effect of time and group on test anxiety and perceived self-efficacy was significant (p<0.001). The collected results also suggested the difference between the mean scores of the pretest and posttest (p<0.001), as well as pretest and follow-up (p<0.001) concerning test anxiety and perceived self-efficacy. The continuity of the effect of intervention in the follow-up stage for the mentioned variables was also observed in the experimental group (p=1.000).

Based on the current research findings, metacognitive education effectively reduced test anxiety and increased the perceived self-efficacy among female third-grade high school students.