Student’s reflections of test anxiety interventions: a systematic review

Students are facing increasing Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs, including coping with test anxiety. Despite research demonstrating the significant impact test anxiety can have upon young people in multiple ways, in many countries there is little support available for schools to better support young people with test anxiety. The purpose of the current review was to provide insight into young people’s views of test anxiety interventions they participated in, to identify which aspects of the interventions are of most value and to understand the difficulties students may have accessing test anxiety interventions. Database searches were conducted and eight studies met the criteria for inclusion in this review. The findings highlighted the positive impact of interventions through enabling young people via cognitive reappraisal to develop strategies to cope with test anxiety. Interventions enabled pupils to improve their well-being and elicited positive emotions. The review identified the importance of practical planning considerations such as group composition and timing factors. The implications for future intervention development and implementation are also discussed.