ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study was to primarily; determine the effects of cognitive – behavioural counselling therapies on the reduction of test anxiety of adolescents in Lagos State Secondary Schools. The influence of sex, locus of control, and entry test anxiety level of students on the reduction of test anxiety at the end of treatment was also examined. To give the study a direction, ten (10) research questions and corresponding hypotheses were formulated and tested.
A randomized block factorial design was employed in the study. Population comprised all senior secondary schools in Lagos State. Three co-educational schools were randomly selected from the population to participate in the study. A total of two hundred and forty (240) subjects were randomly selected. One hundred and eighty – eight (188) of them were found to be test anxious after the pretest. These students from each school were then randomly divided into 3 groups of approximately equal size and a treatment level was randomly assigned to each group. Only one hundred and eighteen (118) of the subjects completed the treatment programme. Two instruments, Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) and a Locus of Control Scale in Test Anxiety (LCSTA), were used for the study. TAI originally constructed by Spielberger, had 0.94 and 0.95 coefficient alpha (α) for American males and female students respectively. The researcher’s revalidation of TAI for Nigerian students yielded coefficient alpha (α) of 0.90. A questionnaire on Locus of Control Scale in Test Anxiety (LCSTA) was also developed by the researcher and vetted by experts to elicit information on the subjects’ locus of control. The LCSTA had a coefficient alpha (α) of 0.85. In addition, the investigator developed the treatment package on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT).
The effects of the therapies on the reduction of test anxiety level were determined by using three 3 – way ANOVA. The therapies involved here are Systematic Desensitization (SD) and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT). The results of the study indicate that: there is a significant difference in the test anxiety level of groups subjected to different therapies after treatment with F-ratio of 44.104 and df (2, 106) which was significant at p<0.05. There is a significant difference in the test anxiety level of groups with moderate and high entry test anxiety level at the end of treatment with F-ratio of 7.924 and df (1, 106) which was significant at p<0.05. There is no significant difference in the test anxiety level of male and female subjects after treatment with F-ratio of 0.135 and df (1, 106) which was not significant at p>0.05. There is no significant difference in the test anxiety level of groups with internal locus of control and external locus of control at the end of treatment with F-ratio of 1.974 and df (1, 106) which was not significant at p>0.05. There is a significant interaction effect of treatment by entry test anxiety level on the reduction of test anxiety at the end of treatment with F-ratio of 3.139 and df (2, 106), which was significant at p<0.05. However, all other secondary independent variables, which are sex (2 levels) and locus of control (2 levels), showed no significant interaction effect at the end of treatment.
