The Use Of Sinha’s Comprehensive Anxiety Test In Psychology
During the last 30 years, anxiety has taken a prominent role in the field of psychology. The term anxiety may be defined as a vague, very unpleasant feeling of uneasiness and worry. Many psychologists have given questionnaires and test to measure anxiety. Sarason and Mandler prepared questionnaire and presented findings on relation of the anxiety. Anxiety, in today’s time, revolves around work, money, family life, health, studies, and other crucial issues that demand a person’s attention without necessarily requiring the ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction. Everybody fears or gets the odd case of having butterflies in their stomach. When someone’s fears or irrelevant thoughts start to interfere with their day-to-day life, that is when anxiety becomes a disorder. In the paper "The Use Of Sinha’s Comprehensive Anxiety Test In Psychology Essay" we will research the concept of anxiety and how we can help with it with test.
Sinha’s Comprehensive Anxiety Test (SCAT) was constructed on the basis of some symptoms of anxiety that were displayed by those people who visited the Institute of Psychological Research and Services, Patna University for psychological assistance. Questions from other tests were incorporated in this test so that the aim of the test could be fulfilled. The aim of the tests was to measure anxiety among college students. This test was first administered on 100 college students who wanted aid as they were complaining of either one of several symptoms of anxiety. The test was conducted on both the genders and results were taken out on that basis.
Reliability of the test refers to the consistency of scores obtained by an individual on the same test on two different occasions. Test- retest method was employed to determine the temporal stability of the test. For a test to be valid, it should measure what it is supposed to measure.
There are total 90 statements in Sinha’s Comprehensive Anxiety Test (SCAT) which the testee has to answer. The test contains questions which will make the testee introspect and invoke a feeling of fear in some questions. This will help the experimenter determine the level of anxiety that an individual has. There is no time limit for the completion of the test but usually an individual takes around 15-20 minutes. There is no right or wrong response for any particular question because individual differences exist and these statements have been designed to study individual’s reaction to different situations. However, it is not considered desirable for the testee to know the aim of the test.
The testee has to answer the questions in either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. After the test has been conducted, evaluation occurs where scoring is done. The inventory can be scored very accurately without the help of any stencil. For any response marked as ‘yes’, the testee is to be given one score and zero for the responses marked as ‘no’. Once this is done, with the help of the SCAT manual, sten scores could be obtained and the level of anxiety within the testee is determined.
The experimenter has conducted this this on 10 college students (5 males and 5 females). After the test was administered¸ results were taken out with the help of SCAT Manual. An individual may be classified into 5 categories where anyone obtaining the percentile of 75 and above may have a complicated personality, considered hyper-anxious and may need psychological help. The extremely low scores, below the percentile of 25 may have an undermotivated and sluggish personality. The middle scores refers to a person’s normal state.
