Investigating the Efficacy of Virtual Reality Forest Meditation as an Intervention for Test Anxiety among College Students
Yali Chen, R. Zhu, Wei Xiong · 2023
The primary objective of this study is to verify the effectiveness of virtual reality forest meditation as an intervention for test anxiety among college students and to investigate the impact of three factors: namely forest style, meditation state, and pranayama guidance, on the intervention effect. A total of thirty participants exhibiting moderate or higher levels of test anxiety were subjected to an induction of test anxiety followed by a virtual reality forest meditation intervention comprising various combinations of the aforementioned three factors. Participants' levels of test anxiety were measured by the TAS scores and the quantification of brainwave energy. The results of the paired sample T-test demonstrate that virtual reality forest meditation constitutes an efficacious intervention for test anxiety among college students. The results of a three-factor analysis of variance revealed that both meditation state and pranayama guidance significantly influenced the effectiveness of virtual reality forest meditation intervention, while forest style did not demonstrate a significant impact. Specifically, wandering meditation was found to be more effective than sitting meditation, and interventions with pranayama guidance were more successful than those without pranayama guidance. Therefore, it can be concluded that guided wandering meditation combined with pranayama in a virtual reality forest environment offers superior alleviation of test anxiety among college students.