Self-regulation as a mediator in the relationship between mindfulness and cognitive test anxiety among university students

Anxiety-related phenomena commonly occur among university students, especially cognitive test anxiety. Individuals with high cognitive test anxiety tend to perform poorly on tests. Several studies have found that mindfulness and self-regulation can affect cognitive test anxiety. This study was conducted to determine whether self-regulation mediates the relationship between mindfulness and cognitive test anxiety in university students. This correlational study was conducted on 192 university students. In this study, cognitive test anxiety was measured using the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale-17 (CTAS-17) (Cassady & Finch, 2014), mindfulness was measured using the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (Brown and Ryan, 2003), and self-regulation was measured using the Short Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SSRQ) (Carey, Neal, & Collins, 2004). Our statistical analysis results show that self-regulation partially mediates the relationship between mindfulness and cognitive test anxiety with indirect effect (β = -0,09, p < 0,05) and direct effect (β = -0,29, p < 0,05). These results indicate that mindfulness can predict cognitive test anxiety directly or through self-regulation in university students. This study adds to the literature on research variables and helps education practitioners such as lecturers, curriculum-makers, and other individuals who work in student education.