The evaluation of the mental and emotional state of the university students in the situation of exam

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to describe the results of the theoretical and empirical study of the mental and emotional state assessment of university students in the examination situation. The dependence of students' mental and emotional state during the examination on personal traits, students' self-assessment, as well as the specificity of their mental and emotional state with different levels of examination anxiety are discussed. Materials and methods: In our research we used the following methods: Cattell's 16-factor personality questionnaire, modified version of Max Luscher's eight-color test – colors choice method (CChM), express test ‘The diagnostics of the examination anxiety’. The sample consisted of 72 first-year full-time students of the specialty ‘pedagogical education’. Age of the students is 17-18 years old. Methods of mathematical statistics are used to estimate data. Research results: The data of the empirical research of the students' mental and emotional state have revealed the negative impact of the examination situation on the students' mental and emotional state. The level of examination anxiety, formed in response to a threatening situation, is determined by a set of the students' personality traits. It has been established that the lower the person's self-assessment is, the higher the level of students' examination anxiety. For students with average data of personal anxiety, the state of stress and exam stress has appeared to be tonic, what allows to keep a sufficient level of ability to work and achieve good learning outcomes. Discussion: The results of the research indicate that the assessment of the mental and emotional state of students in the examination situation will allow predicting human behavior in stressful situations, preventing the adverse impact of negative factors on human activity, and also will become the key to the developing a strategy for maintaining students' psychological health.