Comparing the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies and stress management training based on cognitive behavioral approach on students' test anxiety

The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of training in metacognitive strategies and stress management based on the cognitive-behavioral approach on students' test anxiety. The statistical population of this study included all new incoming psychology students at Islamic Azad University in Sari (1401-1402), totaling 90 people. The sampling method in this study was non-random and 45 people who scored at least 22 on the test anxiety questionnaire were selected as the sample. Then, 15 people were randomly assigned to the first experimental group, 15 people to the second experimental group, and 15 people to the control group. For this purpose, the standard test anxiety questionnaire of Friedman and Jacob (1977) and the standard protocol for training metacognitive strategies derived from Densereau et al. (1988) in ten 60-minute sessions and the stress management training protocol based on the cognitive behavioral approach of Askari (2019) in ten 90-minute sessions were used to collect data. For data analysis, mean and standard deviation were used in the descriptive section, and in the inferential statistics section, due to the normality of the data, multivariate analysis of covariance was used using SPSS26 software. The results showed that the mean of the variables of social humiliation, cognitive error, stress, and overall test anxiety of the participants in the experimental group of metacognitive strategies and stress management based on the cognitive behavioral approach in the post-test was higher than that of the participants in the control group, and this increase in the social humiliation and stress variables was greater in the stress management training group based on the cognitive behavioral approach (p<0.001).