The effect of a cognitive behavior-based psycoeducation program on exam anxiety, cognitive flexibility and attention levels of high school students

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of a cognitive behavioral approach based psycho education program prepared to reduce test anxiety on students' test anxiety level, attention level and cognitive flexibility level. A pre test and post test applied 3x2 experimental design was used in this study, which consisted of 36 students in the experimental, control and placebo groups, whose research group was 11th grade students. The data was collected by "Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale", "Cognitive Flexibility Inventory" and " D2 Attention Test". While 10 sessions Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Based Psycho education Program was used to the experimental group, 6 world classics books were read to the placebo group. No study was applied to the control group. The data was analyzed with "ANOVA with two factors". At the end of the research, the scores of the students' exam anxiety in the experimental group were found significantly lower than the scores of the control and placebo groups. It was observed that the averages of cognitive flexibility and attention scores of the experimental group, which was observed to have decreased, test anxiety scores, increased. The experimental group's scores of cognitive flexibility and attention were also found to have increased dramatically by comparison with the control and placebo groups. The obtained results showed that applied cognitive behavioral approach based psycho education program had an effect on the scores of the test anxiety, and the level of test anxiety had also an effect on cognitive flexibility and the level of attention.