Abstract
Introduction and purpose: exam anxiety influences the students’ cognitive and emotional process besides making problem in their educational process that applying appropriate psychological therapies is a necessity in decreasing these damages. therefore the objective of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of ACT on the psychological flexibility and perfectionism in second high school female students with exam anxiety.
Material and Methods: the present study was experimental with pretest, posttest and control group design and a two-month follow-up stage. The statistical population included second high school female students with exam anxiety in the city of Shahrekord in academic year 2018-19. 30 students with exam anxiety were selected though clustered random sampling method and they were randomly replaced into experimental and control groups (each group of 15). The experimental group received ACT intervention (Heyz et.al. 2004) in ten seventy-five-minute sessions during two and half months. The applied questionnaires in this study included psychological flexibility questionnaire (Denis and Wanderwall, 2010) and perfectionism questionnaire (Mill, et.al, 2004). The data from the study were analyzed through repeated measurement ANOVA.
Findings: the results showed that ACT has significant effect on the psychological flexibility and perfectionism in second high school female students with exam anxiety (p < 0.001).
Conclusion: according to the findings of the present study it can be concluded that ACT can be applied as an efficient therapy to improve psychological flexibility and the decrease of cognitive avoidance in the students with exam anxiety through employing mental techniques and cognitive defusion, stipulating values and committed action.