W. Bauman et Wt. Melnyk, A CONTROLLED COMPARISON OF EYE-MOVEMENTS AND FINGER TAPPING IN THE TREATMENT OF TEST ANXIETY, Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, 25(1), 1994, pp. 29-33
Fifteen pairs of introductory statistics students, matched on initial
test anxiety, were randomly assigned to eye movement desensitization (
EMD) or control (finger tapping) conditions to test whether EMD effect
ively treats test anxiety and, if so, whether eye movement is the crit
ical factor. Both groups had significant decreases in subjective units
of disturbance during treatment, suggesting that another source of at
tenuation of elicited anxiety may be as effective as eye movement in r
educing anxiety. There was a significant decrease in Test Anxiety Inve
ntory Emotionality Scale scores from pretest to follow up for both gro
ups, but mixed results on the Worry Scale and total anxiety scores.