Effectiveness of Mindfulness Meditation in Controlling Examination Anxiety of Secondary School Students

This quasi-experimental study aims to find out the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation on controlling examination anxiety in secondary school students of Kerala. Pretest-posttest control group design was employed wherein four intact divisions of ninth grade students were taken randomly as one control group (n = 39) and three experimental groups (n = 116). Pre-testing and post-testing of examination anxiety was done by using the Examination Anxiety Scale for Secondary School Students developed by the investigators. The treatment groups were exposed to eight 90 minutes sessions of Brief Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Programme. One-way ANCOVA was performed to compare the control group and experimental group with respect to their post-test scores of examination anxiety after partialling out the effect of pre-test scores. The analysis revealed that mindfulness meditation is effective in reducing examination anxiety of secondary school students significantly. While the mindfulness treatment was equally effective for both the gender groups, significant difference was found to exists among students in different levels of academic achievement regarding the success of mindfulness meditation in alleviating examination anxiety.