Associations between Mindfulness, Anxiety, and Academic Performance among Active-Duty Medical Students
Abstract
Medical students face a barrage of cognitively demanding examinations with serious career implications. Anxiety and mindfulness have both been linked to cognitive performance more broadly; however, little is known about their impact among high performers. Participants' (n=35) academic performance was tracked after completion of a baseline assessment. As hypothesized, a moderate negative relationship between dispositional mindfulness and test anxiety (r=-.56) was found. Additionally, mindfulness and test anxiety were both independent predictors of student's scores across four National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) exams. As predicted, students who reported greater levels of mindfulness scored higher (p=.005, R2=.20), whereas those reporting higher levels of anxiety scored lower (p=.007, R2=.22) on average. In contrast to our hypotheses, the interaction between mindfulness and test anxiety was not significant. These preliminary findings suggest mindfulness-based interventions may have an appreciable impact on student performance in addition to helping manage stress and anxiety.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 18, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1186135
Entities
People
- Kade Thornton
Organizations
- Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences