Learning a language can induce anxiety among students. In addition, students can feel anxious when it comes to being tested on their language skills. Studies of goal attainment among health patients, students, and others have shown that self regulation through the model of Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII) can help participants reach their goals. In the current study, we sought to determine whether MCII could help learners better cope with anxiety when being orally examined in a second language. Specifically, we examined whether practicing MCII would lead to reductions in language test taking anxiety over time. We compared the levels of test anxiety in students before and after a six-week period where one group was taught MCII and another was not. MCII participants were instructed on MCII in weekly sessions and encouraged to apply it in testing and other situations in their daily lives. Both the MCII group and the control group were given speaking tests at the beginning and end of the six weeks, and anxiety levels were tested at each of these speaking tests. Anxiety was measured using two methods: a self-assessment, the Foreign Language Anxiety Scale, and a physiological measure of anxiety, saliva cortisol level. All students were interviewed by a trained speaking rater, and their cortisol levels were tested before and after the testing experiences at the beginning and end of the study period. We compared anxiety levels for the treatment (MCII) and control groups. Results showed that cortisol levels among treatment and control groups did not have a significant difference. However, the experiment group that had received MCII treatment reported lower levels of anxiety than the control. This suggests that MCII can lower the level of test anxiety perceived by students.

Bibliography: pages 169-183. / The present investigation was initiated with the aim of assessing the efficacy of multicomponent treatment programmes for test-anxiety in student nurses, in order to develop a programme that could be included in the nursing curricula. The subjects were 103 student nurses currently in their first year of the four-year Diploma in Nursing (General, Community and Psychiatry) and Midwifery at Carinus Nursing College CCNC). They had been randomly allocated to four classes at the College. The study compared high-test-anxious, low-test-anxious and mid-test-anxious subjects within these four groups, three of which received multicomponent treatment programmes, while the fourth was the control· group. Programmes comprised Systematic Desensitisation (SD), Progressive Muscle Relaxation Training and Guided Imagery (PMRT & Gl) and Study Skills Training (SST), each of which included a core component of cognitive restructuring. Treatment spanned six weeks. The following self-report questionnaires were used at pre- and post-intervention: The Anxiety Achievement Test <AATl, the Anticipated Anxiety Rating Scale (AARS) and the Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUD). Academic achievement was also measured at both pre- and post-intervention by means of examination scores. Differences between pre and post scores were analysed by means of One- and Two-Way Multivariate Analysis of Variance. The only group to differ significantly from the Control group at post-test was the SD group, showing reductions on the Debilitative scale of the AAT (p < 0.01), the SUD (p < 0.01) and the AARS (p < 0.05). However, this group expressed less satisfaction with the programme than the PMRT & GI group on the Treatment Evaluation Questionnaire. A subsidiary study compared the CNC student nurses (n = 103) with first-year paramedical students from the following disciplines: logopaedics (n = 12); physiotherapy (n = 24); occupational therapy (n = 18); BSc nursing (n = 12); radiography (n = 27), on the Profile of Mood States (POMS), Health Behaviour Assessment Scale (HBAS) and Matric scores. CNC nurses obtained significantly lower Matric scores than the other .students (p < 0.0001), and showed significant differences on other variables, indicating higher negative mood states and less healthy lifestyles. At one-year follow-up; 33 of the original 103 subjects had failed or resigned: sixteen of whom were high-test-anxious, nine low-test-anxious, eight mid-test-anxious. The drop-out rate was consistent across groups, i.e. treatment had had no long-term effect. Reasons for this are discussed, and the conclusion reached that high levels of test anxiety were realistically felt by student nurses with comparatively low Matric scores when faced with the demands of the four-~ear Diploma course. Such anxiety which at present tends to be dealt with by somewhat self-destructive behaviours could not be easily alleviated by short-term anxiety management programmes. Recommendations are made regarding possible alternative nurse training programmes. There would appear to be good reason to offer a programme with emphasis on clinical skills in addition to the heavily academic four-year Diploma course. A prophylactic stress management programme emphasising healthy lifestyles, and commencing at the start of training, was recommended.

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The purpose of this study was to observe college students’ behavior on five selftailored, multiple choice exams throughout a semester in relation to: a) metacognitive ability, b) self-efficacy expectations, and c) test anxiety. Additionally, the effect of a selftailoring procedure on exam scores and content validity of the tests was observed. Selftailored testing was defined as an option in which students selected up to five questions they wanted to omit from being scored on an exam. Students’ metacognitive ability was defined as the percentage of incorrectly answered questions out of the total number omitted. Ninety-nine college students from two sections of an educational psychology undergraduate course participated in this study. Eighty students completed the study; seventy-one used an option to omit questions on all exams. Before taking exam 1, students answered measures of self-efficacy and test anxiety. After completing each of the five course exams, students marked on the back of their answer sheet up to five questions they wanted to be omitted from scoring. After exam 5, students answered a questionnaire that addressed their perception of the self-tailoring procedure. MANOVA, repeated measures ANOVA, Pearson correlations, t-test and one-way ANOVA were conducted. Students made a statistically significant increase in their scores on all exams by using the questions omitting procedure. There was a statistically significant linear increase of percentages of incorrectly answered questions out of the total number omitted across five exams. Frequency of items that students omitted from scoring were significantly negatively correlated with item difficulty values. The content validity of the test was affected on two out of five exams based on cognitive level of items and on three out of five exams based on chapter coverage. Students’ self-efficacy expectations and test anxiety were not related to the likelihood to apply the self-tailoring procedure or to the degree of success students had in applying the procedure.The study provided a new perspective on self-tailored tests in college classroom with implications for teaching, assessment, and students’ metacognitive abilities.

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The effects of test anxiety on behavioral inhibition were examined using three computerized behavioral tasks. High test anxious subjects demonstrated more behavioral inhibition than low test anxious subjects, according to frequency measures on two of the three behavioral tasks. Group differences in latency measures were not found, however. High test anxious subjects reported higher levels of state anxiety than low test anxious subjects. Increased behavioral inhibition was greater for the Punishment condition, which involved the loss of points and negative audio-visual feedback for incorrect responses, than for the Non-Reward condition. Contrary to initial predictions, group differences were found to be greater in the Non-Reward condition than in the Punishment condition. / Ph. D.