Effects of a brief cognitive behavioral video intervention with coping imagery on college student test anxiety and grade performance

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the Cognitive Behavioral Video Intervention (CBVI), utilizing stress inoculation with coping imagery, on course examination grade and test anxiety level prior to the course examination of a sample of undergraduate students. The study hypothesized that test anxiety level of students participating in the CBVI would be significantly lower than that for those students in the control group, and that the course examination grade for students who participated in the CBVI would be significantly higher than that for the control group. From a randomized sample of 495 undergraduate college students at York College of Pennsylvania, 112 students with high test anxiety as determined by the 75th percentile on the Test Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1980) were randomly assigned to two conditions: (a) the brief, one-hour CBVI based on stress inoculation, or (b) an attention placebo control group. Pretreatment and posttreatment measures were collected on self-reported test anxiety on the Test Anxiety Inventory and course examination grades. After participating in the CBVI, students with high test anxiety were found to have significantly lower $(p < .05)$ test anxiety and higher course examination grades. These findings lead to the conclusions that effects of the CBVI included reduction of test anxiety and improvement of course examination grades of undergraduate college students. The implication is that a strategy such as the CBVI used by colleges and universities would be of benefit in dealing with students with high test anxiety due to ease of use, low cost, and brevity.