The Tapping Evidence Base
Test Anxiety & Students

Tapping for success: A pilot study to explore if Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) can reduce anxiety and enhance academic performance in university students

Boath, E., Stewart, A., Carryer, A. · Innovative Practice in Higher Education · 2013

Outcome study👥 46 participantsPreliminary✓ Source-checked📍 United Kingdom
In plain English. University students learned tapping in a 15-minute workshop right before a presentation they were dreading, and their anxiety scores dropped right away. The four in ten students who kept tapping before the actual presentation ended up with better grades on it than those who skipped it. It's a small pilot with no control group and no random assignment to the tapping group, so treat the grade difference as a promising early signal rather than a settled result.

What they found

46
people took part

Immediately after a single 15-minute EFT round focused on public-speaking anxiety, students' HADS anxiety scores dropped significantly from baseline (p<.001); the 41% of students who went on to use the technique before their actual presentation scored higher on that presentation than students who didn't use it (p<.01).

How the study worked

Who took partthird-year foundation-degree university students facing an anxiety-provoking assessed presentation (n=46)
What they didParticipants received tapping and were measured before and after, without a separate comparison group.
Measured withHospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), presentation grades

💡 Where this could help

If findings like these hold up in larger trials, the promise is simple: a low-cost, self-administered tool that could reach people struggling with test anxiety & students who can't easily access traditional care — at home, between appointments, or where there aren't enough clinicians to go around.

🔬 What to study next

The natural next step: a head-to-head trial against an established treatment like CBT, and a larger sample to confirm the effect.

The full record

DesignOutcome study
Participants46 people
Populationthird-year foundation-degree university students facing an anxiety-provoking assessed presentation
Outcome measuresHospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), presentation grades
JournalInnovative Practice in Higher Education
Year2013
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
MethodEFT / tapping
Publication typeStudy / trial
Verification✓ Confirmed against the primary source

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Cite this study

APA

Boath, E., Stewart, A., & Carryer, A. (2013). Tapping for success: A pilot study to explore if Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) can reduce anxiety and enhance academic performance in university students. Innovative Practice in Higher Education.

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on Test Anxiety & Students

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THE TAPPING EVIDENCE BASE Test Anxiety & Students 46 participants WHAT THEY FOUND Immediately after a single 15-minute EFTround focused on public-speaking anxiety,students' HADS anxiety scores… Outcome study · 46 participants Boath · 2013 · evidence.thetappingsolution.com