The Effectiveness of a Counseling Program in Reducing the Level of Test Anxiety

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of a counseling program in reducing the level of test anxiety among frst year university Bahrain students. The sample consisted of 30 male and female students that was divided into two equal groups: experimental group (15 students) and control group (15 students). The study used the Test Anxiety Scale that was developed by the researchers and a pilot study was conducted to ensure its validity and reliability. The researchers developed and implemented a counseling program on the experimental group. The study revealed that there were signifcant differences in the mean rank scores between the pre- test and the post-test in favor of the experimental group, and that there were also signifcant differences in the mean rank scores between the pre-test and post- test for the experimental group, in favor of the post-test, while there were no signifcant differences for the control group, hence, indicating the effectiveness of the counseling program. Finally, there were no signifcant differences in the mean rank scores between the post-test and follow-up test for the experimental group, confrming the continued effectiveness of the counseling program.