Abstract
Introduction: Test anxiety is a kind of mental self-obsession characterized by self-awareness, self-doubt and low self-esteem. This type of cognitive activities affects both obvious behavior and physiological responses. The main goal of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of quality of life skills training in intolerance of uncertainty, anxiety symptoms and motivational beliefs of students suffering from test anxiety.
Materials and Methods: This study is a semi-experimental ‎research with a pretest-‎posttest and follow-‎up control group ‎design. The research statistical population comprised all senior secondary school ‎ students with test anxiety disorder in Mashhad. The statistical sample included 45 of these students who were selected through convenience sampling method and were then assigned into two experimental and control groups, each containing 15 subjects. For data collection, Test Anxiety Scale by Sarason et al. (1960), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire by Spitzer et al. (2006), Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale by ‎Freeston et al. (1994) and Motivated Strategies for Learning ‎Questionnaire (MSLQ) by Pintrich ‎and De Groot (1999) were employed. Initially, both groups were pretested. Then, quality of life skills training was conducted during 10 sessions of one and a half hours for the experimental group. But the control group did not receive any training. After the end of the training period and two months later, a posttest and a follow-up test were administered for both groups. The data were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance with the aid of SPSS-22.
Results: The obtained results indicated the effectiveness of quality of life skills training in intolerance of uncertainty, anxiety symptoms and motivational beliefs of students with test anxiety (p < 05).
Conclusion: Quality of life skills training is an interventional approach based on positive psychology, which enhances happiness.