Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Based Psychoeducation Group for Test Anxiety: A Case Study of Senior High School Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based psycho-educational group on test anxiety of high school students. The participants were six senior high school students with high level of test anxiety and all of the participants were female. They were selected by multi-stage sampling method. Psycho-educational group was designed to include six processes of psychological flexibility/inflexibility, that is the core concept of ACT; and it lasted six weeks by 90 minutes per week. Participants were interviewed before and after the psychoeducation group. The content analysis was applied and the findings of ACT-based psychoeducation program revealed that participants' test anxiety and psychological inflexibility level as well as how they handle the problem have changed as a result of this psycho-educational group process. The participants also stated that their definition of test anxiety problem have changed after the group process. Implications and suggestions for future research and practice were discussed.