مقايسه روشهاي شناخت درمانگري و حساسيت زدايي منظم در كاهش اضطراب امتحان

A Comparison Between Cognitive Psychotherapy With Systematic Desensitization Technique on Test-Anxiety

Test-anxiety has been concerned as a main school problem. Many research has been investigated the effects of behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy models on school performance. The present study has compared the effect of cognitive psychotherapy techniques (CPT) with systematic desensitization technique (SDT) on reducing the test anxiety in high school students. Two main questions of the study were as follows: 1) do the CPT and SDT technique reduce the test anxiety, and 2) whether or not these techniques have similar effects on test anxiety or they reveal significant differences? Fifty seven students with a high score on anxiety questionnaire and without any marked psychological or physical problem, were selected from a girl high school. Subjects were divided into three matched group including two groups as the experimantal groups and the third one was considered as the control group. The first experimental group received the cognitive psychotherapy techniques for a period of 12 weeks, while the second one received the systematic sensitization technique. The results revealed that for both experimental groups the test anxiety mean scores were significantly lower than the scores of the control group. However, significant differences were not found between the cognitive and desensitization techniques. Moreover, the effects of both techniques were stable in a period of one month follow-up. The results reveal that both psychotherapy techniques have positive and significant effects on test-anxiety level of students.