Effect Of Θ/β-based Neurofeedback Training On College Students’ Test Anxiety

Backgroud: Test anxiety is one of the most common psychological problems faced by contemporary college students.The prevalence of test anxiety among college students is 20 to 40 percent.It has a series of negative effects on students’ learning and mental health.Neurofeedback training is a simple and effective intervention developed in recent years.The current disadvantage of neurofeedback training is that most of them select one or several EEG rhythms and intervene for patients with general anxiety disorders.The specificity of the EEG rhythm chosen for patients with test anxiety type needs to be further investigated.Therefore,this study plans to explore the characteristics of EEG activity in patients with test anxiety.According to this,the appropriate EEG rhythm is selected to train patients with test anxiety,so as to explore a set of efficient training programs suitable for patients with test anxiety.Method: Study 1 selected test anxiety scale scores greater than 20 are defined as high test anxiety group,TAS scores less than 12 are defined as low test anxiety group.There were 25 participants in each group,the purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in EEG activity between individuals with high and low test anxiety at different test stages.Participants underwent a 20-minute Raven intelligence test.Spontaneous EEG data before and during the test were recorded and analyzed.Study 2 was conducted on the basis of Study 1,and TBR was selected as the brainwave parameter for neurofeedback training.A total of 34 patients with high test anxiety were recruited and randomly divided into an experimental group and a control group.Participants in the experimental group received TBR-based neurofeedback training,and those in the control group received muscle relaxation training.All participants underwent the intervention for five weeks.The data were also analyzed before,after,and 3 months after the intervention on the TBR,the level of electrical skin response under stress test,and the test anxiety scale scores of test anxiety patients.Result: The results of the study showed that before the test,there was no significant difference in the α/θ ratio,α wave and θ wave of students with high and low test anxiety,and there was a significant difference in the θ/β ratio and β wave of students with high and low test anxiety.Specifically,the beta wave of high test anxiety students was significantly lower than that of low test anxiety students,and the theta/beta ratio was significantly higher than that of low test anxiety students.In the test,there was no significant difference in the α/θ ratio,α wave,θ wave and β wave of students with high and low test anxiety,and there was a significant difference in theθ/β ratio of students with high and low test anxiety,which was manifested as that theθ/β ratio of students with high test anxiety was significantly higher than that of students with low test anxiety.The results of Study 2 showed that,in terms of TAS scores,both the neurofeedback training group and the muscle relaxation training group reduced the patients’ test anxiety after the 5-week intervention,and the neurofeedback training group showed a higher degree of decrease.However,at the follow-up after 3 months,the TAS scores in the neurofeedback training group remained significantly different than before the intervention,and the TAS scores in the muscle relaxation training group were not significantly different than before the intervention.In terms of the patients’ electrical skin response levels under stress tests,the patients in the neurofeedback training group showed a significant decrease in electrical skin response levels after the intervention,which remained stable at the follow-up after 3 months.Patients in the muscle relaxation training group showed a decrease in the level of electrical skin response after the intervention,but it did not reach statistical significance.In resting state data analysis,the θ/β ratio in the neurofeedback training group decreased significantly after intervention and remained stable at follow-up after 3 months.No significant differences in θ/β values were found in the muscle relaxation training group before and after the intervention.Conclusion: From the results of this study,it was found that the TBR of participants in the high test anxiety group was significantly higher than that in the low test anxiety group.The use of TBR as a neurofeedback training parameter for test anxiety patients was effective in improving test anxiety,and neurofeedback training was superior to traditional behavioral training in terms of the degree of improvement and lasting efficacy.Therefore,neurofeedback training can be used as the preferred intervention to improve test anxiety in future clinical interventions,so as to improve the efficacy and stability of intervention effect.