The Relationship Between Mindfulness and Test Anxiety Among High School Students: The Chain Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation and Psychological Resilience

Abstract

Test anxiety not only affects the performance of high school students in exams but also impacts their mental health. Previous studies have found that mindfulness helps alleviate the negative effects of test anxiety, but studies on its underlying mechanisms remain relatively scarce. Based on the Process Model of Emotion Regulation and the Conservation of Resources Theory, this study investigates the relationship between mindfulness and test anxiety among high school students and explores the mechanisms involved. A survey was conducted using the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale, Emotion Regulation Scale, Resilience Scale for Chinese Adolescent, and Test Anxiety Scale, involving 674 high school students. The results showed that: (1) Mindfulness was significantly correlated with test anxiety, cognitive reappraisal, and psychological resilience among high school students, while the correlation between test anxiety and expressive suppression was not significant; (2) Mindfulness influences test anxiety through two independent pathways: cognitive reappraisal (β = 0.22, p < 0.001) and psychological resilience (β = 0.70, p < 0.001); (3) Mindfulness also acts through a chain pathway: cognitive reappraisal → psychological resilience → test anxiety (β = −0.02, 95% CI = [−0.04, −0.01]). These findings indicate that mindfulness reduces test anxiety by either enhancing cognitive reappraisal or psychological resilience alone, or by exerting a greater anxiety‐relieving effect through the chain mediating effect of “cognitive reappraisal‐psychological resilience,” providing dual‐pathway evidence for targeted interventions.