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A Comparison Of Two In-Class Anxiety Reduction Exercises Before A Final Exam, Virginia Clinton, Stacy Meester

Educational Foundations and Research Faculty Publications

The purpose of this quasi-experiment is to test two different methods for helping students reduce anxiety before an exam. Students in two introductory psychology courses (N = 111) engaged in either a focused-breathing or expressive-writing exercise before their final exam. Results indicated that, compared to previous exam performance, both focused breathing and expressive writing improved performance for students with high levels of trait test anxiety. However, there was no effect on final exam performance for either method for students with low levels of trait test anxiety. Both exercises appeared to reduce state anxiety for students, although the reduction was greater …