The Tapping Project: Introducing Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Wellbeing in Primary School Students

Outcome study👥 138 participantsPreliminary✓ Source-checked📍 Australia

In plain English. A researcher taught tapping to 138 primary schoolers across a school year, and the kids who started out most anxious got the biggest boost in mood and the biggest drop in anxiety scores. Teachers and students also reported the skill carried over into daily life, like an easier time paying attention in class. This was a doctoral dissertation with a single group and no untreated comparison classroom, so the size of the anxiety drop should be read as a real but preliminary classroom-level signal rather than a controlled trial result.

What they found

138

people took part

Across a 30-week, mixed-methods classroom program teaching 138 primary school students to tap, anxiety (RCMAS-2) decreased and wellbeing (SUWS) improved significantly over the two intervention stages, with the largest gains among students who started out most anxious or reporting they felt 'not great.'

How the study worked

Who took partprimary school students (northern Australia) taught EFT tapping in the classroom over a 30-week, two-stage program (n=138)

What they didParticipants received tapping and were measured before and after, without a separate comparison group.

Measured withSubjective Units of Wellbeing Scale (SUWS), Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS-2)

💡 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 anxiety 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 randomized controlled design.

The full record

Design	Outcome study
Participants	138 people
Population	primary school students (northern Australia) taught EFT tapping in the classroom over a 30-week, two-stage program
Outcome measures	Subjective Units of Wellbeing Scale (SUWS), Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS-2)
Journal	Doctoral dissertation, Charles Darwin University (ProQuest Dissertations Publishing)
Year	2020
Country	Australia
Language	English
Method	EFT / tapping
Publication type	Dissertation
Verification	✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Lambert, M. (2020). The Tapping Project: Introducing Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Wellbeing in Primary School Students. Doctoral dissertation, Charles Darwin University (ProQuest Dissertations Publishing). https://doi.org/10.25913/78ra-3a33

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 Anxiety · Test Anxiety & Students