Art Therapy Intervention to Reduce Test Anxiety in Late Adolescents

Abstract

Test anxiety is a psychological problem frequently experienced by late adolescents and has the potential to disrupt both academic performance and emotional well-being. This study aimed to examine whether an art therapy intervention was related to changes in test anxiety among late adolescents. A quasi-experimental one-group pretest–posttest–follow-up design was employed with six female participants aged 18–21 years. Test anxiety was measured using the Test Anxiety Inventory, and data analysis involved the Friedman test to assess differences across measurement times, as well as the Durbin–Conover post hoc test to identify specific pairwise differences. The results indicated significant differences in anxiety scores across the three assessments (pretest, posttest, and follow-up). Further analysis revealed significant reductions from pretest to posttest and from pretest to follow-up, whereas the difference between posttest and follow-up was not significant. Thus, the art therapy intervention was associated with reductions in test anxiety that remained observable at the follow-up evaluation. The practical implication of this study is that art-based activities may be considered as a component of psychological support services within educational settings to help manage academic anxiety.