Effectiveness of Neuro-Verbal Planning on Test Anxiety and Self-efficacy in Students

Object: The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of neuro-verbal programming on test anxiety and self-efficacy in secondary school students in Diwandareh city. The present study was a semi-experimental pretest-posttest design with control group. The sample consisted of 30 students who were selected from among students with anxiety tests based on structured interviews and the implementation of the Sarahson Anxiety Inventory (1957) and were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. The experimental group was trained in 8 sessions of neurological planning and the control group did not receive any experimental intervention. Anxiety Inventory Questionnaire of Sarason (1957) and Social Self-efficacy Scale (Smith and Betz, 2000) were used as pretest and posttest on participants. One-way covariance analysis showed that therapeutic interventions were effective in reducing the test anxiety in the experimental group (P<0.01), but did not affect the self-efficacy of individuals (P<0.05). In general, the results indicate that counseling and psychotherapy specialists can apply the verbal neural program approach to the treatment of anxiety disorders.