The Components of Mental Health and Test Anxiety in Talented and Normal Schools Students

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between test anxiety with mental health and implicit-explicit self esteem. The comparison of these constructs between talented and normal schools students was assessed as well. 112 talented school male students and 96 normal school male students from Khorasan Razavi were selected by convenience sampling and completed the package of instruments including: Test Anxiety Scale (TAS; carver & shyer, 1981), General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12; Goldberg, 1972), Pope Self-Esteem Scale (PSES; Pope, 1989) and Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Results showed a negative association between explicit self-esteem and mental health with test anxiety, but no significant association for test anxiety and implicit self-esteem. In addition, there was no significant difference between two schools in test anxiety and implicit self-esteem. But the mental health of talented school students was higher than the mental health of normal school students. The findings of this study showed that the academic and social context of students is essential for determination of their level of mental health and self-esteem and dominance on academic challenge and hence, reduce their test anxiety.