Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Education on Alexithymia, Test Anxiety and Adjustment to College in Students

Objective: Student periods are always accompanied by various challenges, including increased alexithymia and test anxiety, and decreased adjustment to college. Consequently, the aim of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based education on alexithymia, test anxiety, and adjustment to college in students. Methods and Materials: This research was a quasi-experimental with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The population of this study was girl students of Payam Noor University of South Tehran Branch in the 2023-2024 academic years. The sample of this study was 30 students who were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly with the help of a lottery assigned into two equal groups. The experimental group received 8 sessions of 120 minute with the mindfulness-based education protocol of Baer et al. (2006), and the control group did not receive any education. The data of the present research were collected with Toronto alexithymia scale (Bagby et al., 1994), test anxiety questionnaire (Sarason, 1957), and adjustment to college questionnaire (Baker and Siryk, 1984) and were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance in SPSS-23 software.

Findings: The findings of this study showed that there were significant differences between the groups in terms of all three variables of alexithymia, test anxiety, and adjustment to college. In other words, mindfulness-based education decreasing alexithymia and test anxiety, and increasing adjustment to college in students (P<0.001).

Conclusion: According to the results of the present research, university counselors and psychologists can use mindfulness-based education to decrease alexithymia and test anxiety, and increase adjustment to college in students.