Thesis supervisor: Attila Szabó
Location of studies (in Hungarian): ELTE PPK Budapest, Kazinczy u. 23-27 Abbreviation of location of studies: Kazy
Description of the research topic:
Academic test anxiety has a negative affect n students performance and academic achievement. The aim of this project is to investigate the psychophysiological processes involved in the academic examination-related test anxiety-buffering capacity of a short 15-30-minute episode of laughter (humour) on the basis of physiological , psychological and behavioural measures. The anxiety-mediating capacity of humour and laughter will be investigated in this study. Volunteer students from several large universities in Budapest will be screened for their sense of humour, aerobic fitness, trait anxiety, and acute stress-reactivity levels by using physiological and psychological measures. People highly reactive to test-anxiety - having high and low sense of humour - will be selected through a pilot study and invited to participate in the main study. This will involve two, counterbalanced, laboratory (control) and field (real life test situation) sessions. In the first session, participants will watch a video-clip of an appreciated stand up comedian or an episode of preferred funny television series (i.e., Friends, Mr Bee), before a real-life test situation. In the second session, after the humorous video, only a mock test will be administered with no stakes (thus no-anxiety triggering) academic test situation. Before, during and after both interventions, the participants’ physiological and psychological responses will be monitored. Behavioural anxiety, in response to stress, will be assessed through a video or a one one-way mirror using a standardised test protocol. This is a between subjects design in which participants act as their own control. However, in a second wave of the PhD programme a control group of high anxious students will also be tested in the same situation, but without humour intervention, to assess the net value of using pre-examination humour in the mediation of test-anxiety. In fact the two waves may be interchanged, and the control wave may be performed prior to the intervention wave, but this order is flexible an will be decided in consultation with the PhD candidate working on this project.
Required language skills: angol Number of students who can be accepted: 1
Deadline for application: 2021-04-21
2024. IV. 17. ODT ülés Az ODT következő ülésére 2024. június 14-én, pénteken 10.00 órakor kerül sor a Semmelweis Egyetem Szenátusi termében (Bp. Üllői út 26. I. emelet).
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