The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of group counseling programs on reducing test anxiety of children and adolescents in the Republic of Korea by utilizing meta-analysis methods. A total of 39 studies from 2000 to 2021 were anal...
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of group counseling programs on reducing test anxiety of children and adolescents in the Republic of Korea by utilizing meta-analysis methods. A total of 39 studies from 2000 to 2021 were analyzed. The mean effect sizes and tests for homogeneity of effect size were analyzed by using the R Project for Statistical Computing 3.6.2 version. A random-effects model was adopted, and 144 effect sizes were calculated.
The following analysis results were observed. First, the overall mean effect size of the programs was found to be 1.233. The effect size is considered as a large mean effect size according to the criteria established by Cohen (1988). Second, among moderating variables of the programs, the effect size for each participant was 1.089 for children and 1.344 for adolescents, which was larger than the children’s. Additionally the effect size was largest when the programs were conducted by both children and adolescents who have high test anxiety. In the analysis depending on the grade composition, single-grade groups had a larger effect size than mixed grades for children. The effect size by gender was larger in adolescents when the program groups consisted of males. The effect size was larger when the participants voluntarily took part in the program for both children and adolescents. The effect size by group size was greatest when there were 10 or fewer members for both children and adolescents groups. The effect size determined by the total number of sessions was largest when the number of sessions was 11 or 12 for children. The effect size by the number of sessions per week was largest when there was only one session per week for children. The effect size determined by the session duration was largest when the programs were longer than 90 minutes for adolescents. The effect size depending on the period of implementation was largest when programs were run from 5 to 8 weeks for children. The effect size of the adolescents who shared thoughts after each session was higher than that of those adolescents who did not share the thoughts. In addition, for children, the programs were most effective when a task was presented to them. The effect size depending on the theme of program was largest when the program was performed with media for both children and adolescents. Third, the effect size subject to to the dependent variables added to test anxiety was the largest when affective-related variables were measured together with test anxiety for adolescents. Lastly, among the dependent variables, the effect size of children was found to be high in the order of general-related variables, cognitive-related variables, affective-related variables, and physical-related variables.
Based on these outcomes, the results of this study could be employed to assist in planning a group counseling program to reduce test anxiety for both children and adolescents. Moreover, they can provide further implications for continuous development and implementation of the study to reduce Test anxiety for children and adolescents.