The Effectiveness of Emotional Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (ECBT) on Reducing Test Anxiety and its Components in Students with Special Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to evaluate emotion-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (ECBT) on test anxiety components in students with specific learning disorder (SLD). This research was an experimental study with the pre and post-test with a control group design. The statistical population of the present study was all fourth to sixth grade elementary students of two learning disabilities centers under the supervision of education in district 2 of Rasht who had referred to improve their learning disabilities and were studying in the academic year 2018-2019. Research sample included 30 students with specific learning disorder (SLD) who were selected through available sampling and classified into two groups: experimental group (n=20 subjects) and control group (n=20 subjects). For data collection we used Brooks (2015) test anxiety questionnaire. The results of maltivariate analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) showed the emotion-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy was effective in reducing the components of test anxiety in students with specific learning disorder. Based on the obtained results, it can be said that emotion-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy can decrease the test anxiety of these students by making changes in inconsistent cognitive thoughts and distortions and using emotion regulation techniques.