P117: The Comparison of Self-Efficacy and Coping Styles among Students with High Test Anxiety and Students Normally

Test is the majority of student’s life and test anxiety is an experience that has commonly been observed during exams. In fact, anxiety is a vague feeling and very uncomfortable that so often considered to be associated with one or more physical sense, for instance, the empty feeling of heart palpitations, headache and sweating. The purpose of this study is to investigate and to compare the self-efficacy beliefs and coping styles among students with high test anxiety. This study is a cross-sectional comparison. The study population consisted of all high school students in Tehran studying in 2014. Subjects consisted of 52 students with high test anxiety and 52 students were normal using matching method (based on sex, age, school grade, school and socio-economic status). Information about the variables of interest was collected through questionnaires of general self-efficacy Sherer and colleagues and coping with stress questionnaire (CISS). Results of multivariate analysis of variance showed that the two groups of students in self-efficacy and coping style, there is a significant difference (P≤0.01). This means that students with high test anxiety are more likely to experience low levels of self-efficacy and had avoidant emotion-focused coping styles. While normal students have a higher self-efficacy and coping styles is a problem-focused. These results may have important implications in the field of education and counseling services for students with high test anxiety. Problem-focused coping skills in schools can increase self-efficacy in terms of life skills training to prevent test anxiety. A regular program of teaching them to cope properly and efficiently may help reducing anxiety and increasing the level of self-efficacy in students.