Defining facilitative anxiety in strategic terms: a Delphi study

Abstract

The present study employs the Delphi Technique to establish consensus on the long-needed definition of facilitative anxiety amongst education professionals and to reveal the strategies they resort to in the course of turning debilitative anxiety into facilitative anxiety. Through a literature review the study demonstrates the gap for a definition and the lack of entries for the term in references. Drawing upon the data the study yields a strategy-oriented facilitative anxiety definition paving the way for relativistic reconsideration of the term indicating the possible directions along which the literature on anxiety may proceed. The following emerged as the most salient facilitative anxiety strategies: (1) positive competition & challenge (2) active participation (3) avoidance of individual-specific DA-triggering thresholds (4) positive reinforcement & encouragement (4) preparedness & practice in advance through sufficient exposure (5) motivation to succeed & willingness (7) teamwork & cooperation (8) orderliness & discipline and (9) creation of interest.