Research And Intervention On The Relation Model Between Cognitive Test Anxiety And Academic Performance Of Junior Middle School Students

Test anxiety is a series of stress responses in form of psychological reactions,physiological arousal and social behaviors when individuals perceive certain internal and external evaluative situations,which is caused by the gap between one’s own test abilities and performance goal.Due to cognitive evaluation,individuals are affected by negative emotions that lead to various defensive or evasive behavior..There are a large number of Chinese students troubled by test anxiety.As time passes and the education system changes,Chinese students’ high-test anxiety shows an upward trend,about 22%-30%,and the number is about 19 million to 26 million.Many studies have shown that excessive test anxiety has an all-round adverse impact on students,which not only affects academic performance,but also damages cognitive abilities such as memory,attention ability and working memory.Academic stress and anxiety also affect students’ physical and mental health.Therefore,the research on the mechanism and intervention of test anxiety has important clinical significance and scientific value.From the empirical effect of pre-existing interventions,most interventions cannot reduce the level of test anxiety and improve performance at the same time.Test anxiety can be divided into cognitive test anxiety and emotional physiological test anxiety.Cognitive test anxiety is one kind of cognitive worry induced by the gap between one’s own test abilities and performance goal under certain internal and external evaluative situations,including the negative mentality formed by negative cognitive evaluation.International and domestic studies have shown that cognitive test anxiety has a greater predictive effect on academic performance than emotional physiological test anxiety and there is a very significant negative correlation between the cognitive components of test anxiety and academic performance.Looking at the field of test anxiety research,there has been a wealth of research,but most of the intervention research is aimed at general test anxiety,and there is little intervention for cognitive test anxiety.International intervention studies have proved that academic performance can be improved when reducing external cognitive load and releasing resources for internal load.Therefore,based on the pre-existing theories of cognitive load and test anxiety six factors model,this study intends to design a psychological intervention training program for cognitive test anxiety of junior school students,and discuss the possibility of reducing cognitive test anxiety and improving academic performance.In Study 1,based on the expectation related theories and the economic concept of "achievement aspiration gap",the variable "performance expectation gap" is creatively proposed.performance expectation gap is the gap between the academic performance expectation target and the actual performance prediction.Based on the pre-existing theories,life experiences and clinical practices,a hypothetical model is proposed to explore and verify the data support in Study 1 and Study 2.The hypotheses of this study are:(1)performance expectation gap has a significant positive predictive effect on cognitive test anxiety,that is,the greater the gap between performance expectation goal and actual performance prediction,the higher cognitive test anxiety;(2)test failure consequences have a significant positive predictive effect on cognitive test anxiety;(3)Test anxiety has a significant negative predictive effect on academic performance;(4)Psychological intervention based on hypothesis model can effectively reduce the cognitive test anxiety level of students;(5)Psychological intervention can effectively improve the mathematics performance of students with test anxiety.In Study 1,a questionnaire survey is used to investigate the relationship between performance expectation gap,test failure consequences,cognitive test anxiety and academic performance,with performance expectation gap and test failure consequence as independent variables,cognitive test anxiety and academic performance as dependent variables.The subjects are selected junior middle school students from a middle school in Chongqing.413 valid questionnaires are collected.The data is analyzed with Amos24.0 structural equation model.In Study 2,the cognitive test anxiety psychological intervention training program is used for junior three students with test anxiety.The pre-test and post-test design of the experimental group and the control group is used to systematically investigate the effectiveness of the intervention in this study in reducing cognitive test anxiety and improving academic performance.This intervention plan is designed according to the cognitive test anxiety hypothesis model assumed by this study and supported by study 1.The main contents include setting reasonable goals,identifying intrusive thoughts(consequences of test failure),learning skill training(for Math),etc.in the form of group psychological counseling.The subjects are junior middle school students with the highest anxiety level and medium performance,and are randomly divided into two groups.There are 18 effective subjects in the experimental group and 19 effective subjects in the control group.The experimental group receives 15 group counseling interventions on cognitive test anxiety for two months,while the control group did not receive any training.After the intervention,the two groups are tested.The results are summarized as follows:(1)Performance expectation gap has an extremely significant positive predictive effect on cognitive test anxiety.(2)Test failure consequences have an extremely significant positive predictive effect on cognitive test anxiety.(3)Cognitive test anxiety can significantly negatively predict academic performance.(4)Cognitive test anxiety psychological intervention can significantly reduce the level of cognitive test anxiety.(5)Cognitive test anxiety psychological intervention can significantly improve math performance,but the effect on other subjects is not significant.(6)Cognitive test anxiety psychological intervention can significantly reduce obsessive-compulsive symptoms,and the effect on other dimensions of mental health is not significant.