Test anxiety and spirituality on last grade high school students: sample of Şanlıurfa-Vi̇ranşehi̇r

The purpose of this research is to identify the relation between the test anxiety experienced by the last grade students of high school and the level of religiousity and spirituality. The sample has been selected by coincidence method from the 12th grade students studying Science and Anatolian High School in Viranşehir, which is the town of Şanlıurfa. The survey of this research has been applied 552 students in total. As measuring tools it has been used some clauses to determine changing spiritual attitudes, the strategies of coping with the test anxiety and Revised Test Anxiety which is based on information given by the person himself/herself and developed in order to identify the level of test anxiety. Independent variables are gender, age, type of school, the socio-economical situation of family, the level of parent's education and the level of test anxiety experienced by students. The findings have showed that female students significantly differentiate from male students in terms of using religious-spiritual coping strategies to cope with the test anxiety and in this process, increasing of their spiritual level. Although it has not been detected a significant differentiation between the test anxiety and type of school, it has been concluded the students studying in Anatolian High School get higher scores and their level of spirituality is higher than the students studying in Science High School. At the same time, it has been identified that both female students significantly differentiate from male students and the students studying in Science High School differentiate from students studying in Anatolian High School in terms of using religious-spiritual coping strategies to cope with the test anxiety. It has been found that while female students prefer introvert coping strategies such as closing inward, eating, sleeping and crying to cope with test anxiety, male students usually use extrovert coping strategies such as going to cinema and surfing on net. And there is no significant relation between the type of school and the level of students' spirituality. Keywords: Anxiety, test anxiety, introvert religiosity, spirituality, coping, religious coping.