Efficiency of the treatments aimed at physiological and cognitive components of anxiety

In this study the aim is comparing the efficiency of the behavioral therapy and the cognitive therapy on the treatment of examination anxiety. In order to achieve this aim the effectiveness of the cognitive and behavioral therapy is determined and the success level of the sudents in the therapy groups has been monitored. The findings of study has been discussed according to examination anxiety theories. Except for the pointed aims any other hypotheses were also tested. The hypotheses of the study are as follows: cognitive therapy has superiority over the behavioral therapy in decreasing the cognitive symptoms of anxiety; the behavioral therapy has superiority over the cognitive therapy in decreasing the physiological symptoms of the anxiety; the level of anxiety with the increase in the number of the university examinations, the levels of anxiety of the students will increase too. The research is composed of two phases; preparation and application phases. 50 students who were in the senior classes of high schools and were graduated from a high school were included into the research. The application of the research was in the form of a group therapy. The students who were to join to the group therapy were allocated into cognitive and behavioral therapy groups at random. Therapy groups consisted of 4-8 people. In the study, 8 therapy groups took place, four of which were behavioral therapy groups and other four of which were cognitive therapy groups. Therapy sessions were carried on for 9 weeks. All the therapy sessions were recorded in a video. So as to evaluate the efficiency of the therapies, all groups were subjected to an evaluation packet before and after therapy sessions. For evaluating the efficiency of the therapy sessions, the anxiety measurements of the students were taken before and after every therapy sessions. As a result of analyses, behavioral therapy and cognitive theory, in line with the litterateur, were determined to be effective on reducing the examination anxiety. Both of 95 the applied therapies were determined to be efficient in equal ratio on the treatment of examination anxiety. In literature; one of three studies which compare these two therapies aimed to the treatment of examination anxiety, is in line with this finding. The findings of the study supported the examination anxiety theory (Lazarus and Averill, 1972) which set forth that the cognitive and behavioral components of examination anxiety effect each other as a process. In the study, it was seen that different treatments aimed at the two components of the examination anxiety can effect other component which was not dealed with in the treatment at the same level. The behavioral therapy and cognitive therapy were found to be effective in equal ratio in the measurements aimed at the two components of examination anxiety. It was determined that the types of the two applied therapies raise the performances of the students via decreasing the examination anxiety and that only two of fifty students were unsuccessful in university exam. As a result of the analyses; it was determined that before therapy , the level of anxiety of students, in parallel with the increase in the number of the university exams , increased. Except for the hypotheses in the study, it was determined that the anxiety level of the women is higher than that of men and students? negative perceptions of their success at school has no effect on their examination anxiety, but their negative perceptions of their success at private teaching institutions has effect on their examination anxiety. In the study it was also seen that decreasing the level of examination anxiety, behavioral therapy and cognitive theory effect other anxiety types of the students and their general psychological moods positively.