Effect of cognitive-behavioral therapy with music therapy in reducing physics test anxiety among students as measured by generalized test anxiety scale

BACKGROUND: The study determined the effect of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) with music in reducing physics test anxiety among secondary school students as measured by generalized test anxiety scale. METHODS: Pre-test post-test randomized control trial experimental design was adopted in this study. A total of 83 senior secondary students including male (n = 46) and female (n = 37) from sampled secondary schools in Enugu State, Nigeria, who met the inclusion criteria constituted participants for the study. A demographic questionnaire and a 48-item generalized test anxiety scale were used for data collection for the study. Subjects were randomized into treatment and control groups. The treatment group was exposed to a 12-week CBT-music program. Thereafter, the participants in the treatment group were evaluated at 3 time points. Data collected were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance. RESULTS: The participants who were exposed to CBT-music intervention program significantly had lower test anxiety scores at the post-treatment than the participants in the control group. Furthermore, the test anxiety scores of the participants in the CBT-music group were significantly lower than those in the control group at the follow-up measure. Thus, the results showed a significant effect of CBT with music in reducing physics test anxiety among secondary school students. CONCLUSION: We concluded that CBT-music program has a significant benefit in improving the management of physics test anxiety among secondary school students.