Understanding and overcoming test anxiety

Test anxiety is a highly prevalent and impairing condition in adolescents, significantly impacting on their mental health and well-being. Despite lack of consensus regarding its nature and features, test anxiety has been linked to social anxiety, shame and self-criticism. Furthermore, it associates to low self-compassion, acceptance and mindfulness, which have been increasingly noted in the literature as fundamental competencies to cope with human suffering in general, and with academic difficulties in particular. However, programs with these components with adolescents are, from our knowledge, nonexistent.

This project, therefore, aims to reduce the scientific gap on test anxiety literature in two ways: building a more comprehensive model of test anxiety; and designing and implementing a group program with adolescent students, developing processes (i.e., compassion, acceptance and mindfulness) that have been proved adaptive and useful in several human difficulties, and that may also help decrease test anxiety, as well as increase general well-being.