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Courses: This class activity is suited for the basic course on public speaking (to discuss issues related to identity, privilege, and audience analysis), interpersonal communication, intercultural ...

Oral presentations and public speaking are an important aspect of the student experience in the United Kingdom higher education. Many modules (self-contained units normally within a programme of study) use presentations as a form of assessment and require students to verbally engage in small and large group settings to enhance learning. Previous research evidence has indicated that many students experience fear in public speaking. The aims of this qualitative survey were two-fold. First, it sought to gather further insight into the fears experienced and strategies used by students who fear public speaking, including oral presentations. The second objective was to determine whether their fear affected their experience of higher education. A qualitative survey comprising four open-ended questions was completed by 46 undergraduate and postgraduate students with a fear of public speaking from the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol. All participants were attending one of the Stand Up and Be Heard (SUBH) UWE library-based workshops for fear of public speaking. Thematic analysis was used to identify the following six themes, namely: fear of being judged, physical symptoms, uncertainty about the topic, negative effect on university experience, practice and preparation, and more practical support needed. The results of this survey identify the specific fears students have in public speaking and provide evidence of the overall negative effect on their higher education experience. This survey provides further evidence that higher education institutions should acknowledge public speaking fear among some students and provide more support in oral presentation assessments.

Public Speaking, Survey of Communication Studies, Interpersonal Communication, Intercultural Communication.This activity focuses on helping students (1) become aware of their implicit biases, (2) u...

The development of oral presentation skills requires multiple opportunities to present and receive focused feedback. In typical discipline-based and general-education courses, class time is preciou...

The purpose of this study was to better understand the relationship between visiting a communication center and taking an introductory communication course on student public-speaking anxiety, goal ...

Public Speaking, Rhetorical Criticism, Intercultural Communication.By utilizing a culturally competent Asiacentric approach to public speaking, students will be able to: (1) identify public-speakin...

The present paper reports on the educational experience of two groups of trainee interpreters who took part in a public speaking workshop. The participants (n = 29) were asked to engage in exercise...

This study explored the experience of student and teacher participants in a mental health public speaking challenge, including their self-reported knowledge of mental health, mental health literacy...

To better understand the development of ethical communicators, this study applies the framework of Jones’ ethical decision-making model to explore how students in a first-year public speaking class...

Students are challenged to write papers and give oral presentations across disciplines. Yet, the audience for students often remains the same: college personnel and classroom peers. Communication c...

Extending previous research on the Computers Are Social Actors paradigm and the human-to-human interaction script, this study examines the interpersonal impressions of a social robot evaluator vers...

This article explores the role of campuses and universities in protecting free speech while providing for the needs of students adversely impacted by speaker content. A specific event at the Univer...

The creative writing curriculum has historically focussed on discipline-specific skills, developing students’ proficiency in literary forms, craft and techniques. However, contemporary writers are increasingly expected to participate in the economy of ideas through festival appearances, debates, and other forms of public speaking – skills that the creative writing curriculum has yet to fully contend with. We argue for the value of teaching debate as a distinct topic of inquiry for creative writing students, and hold that pedagogical innovation is required to address the changing nature of literary cultures and their increasing orientation towards performativity. This article establishes a new pedagogical model designed to introduce creative writing students to the study and practice of debate, comprising four key stages: modelling, scaffolding, debating and reflection. This learning progression not only fosters students’ oral argumentation skills, but also prompts critical reflection on the way key ideas in their field connect with their creative works. We contend that introducing debate into the creative writing curriculum addresses broader shifts in the writing and publishing industry, and that oral argumentation and debate should be considered key graduate competencies for creative writing students in the twenty-first century.

Given the opportunities new technologies afford students and instructors, this mixed methods, longitudinal study examined factors impacting college students’ behavioral intentions for adopting virt...

Courses: Persuasion, Marketing, Advanced Public Speaking, Argumentation.Objectives: The aims of this assignment are to introduce students to the concept of data mining as a tool for audience analys...

Background: Undergraduate research is evident in many forms across higher education: in journals, at conferences and on research placements. It is widely reported that undergraduate research can encourage the development of discipline-specific and transferable communication skills and, in some cases, a more complex development of higher-order critical appraisal. Recent studies of extracurricular undergraduate research conferences have also found that participants report a development of self-authorship and an appreciation of the conference as liminal and transformative space. With many published studies measuring immediate feedback surrounding conference events, there is also a need to explore participants’ reflections over a longer term period of time.Purpose: This small-scale project investigated participants’ self-report of whether and in what ways participation in a non-assessed, extracurricular undergraduate research conference had impacted their academic and professional practices, one year after their involvement in the conference.Method: The qualitative study took place over two academic years with participants from an undergraduate conference which was held annually. The investigation adopted an action research methodology and completed two cycles of research. Data were collected firstly through an online survey with open questions, yielding feedback from 44 respondents. Focus groups were then conducted with nine of these students to explore this data further. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data.Findings: The two cycles of data collection and analyses resulted in the identification of four central themes: (1) general positive impact on studies or career; (2) the development of presentation skills and personal confidence; (3) the development of research skills and perspectives; (4) an increased engagement with extracurricular opportunities.Conclusions: Overall, our analysis identified that participants reported a development in communication skills and an enhanced relationship with the concept of ‘research’ and self-authorship. Students’ report that participation directly led to increased engagement with additional extracurricular activities is particularly noteworthy, as it contributes something new to the growing body of literature surrounding undergraduate research. More widely, the study suggests the potential for undergraduate conferences to act as springboards for increased extracurricular engagement.

This study examines how students characterize their experience of a communication-based digital humanities project in relation to elements of situated embodiment and situated learning. Analysis of ...

Given the importance of communication skills, the high incidence of communication apprehension felt amongst accounting students is concerning. Much research has investigated apprehension towards or...

Oral presentations are common in higher education worldwide. There is no shortage of evidence substantiating the association between oral presentations and anxiety. In the light of the close connec...

Courses: This unit-level teaching assignment was designed for courses on rhetoric, persuasion, professional communication, public speaking, and business communication.Objectives: By completing this...

Courses: Introduction to Rhetoric and Communication, Basic Course, Public Speaking, Classical Rhetoric.Objectives: To re-establish disciplinary commitment to civic education in perilous democratic ...

Virtual reality (VR) technology is making its mark across market sectors (e.g., gaming, healthcare, tourism). This paper examines the use of VR in education, specifically in business classes, to be...

To engage young children meaningfully in educational research requires careful scrutiny of ethics and of methodological choices [Vandenbroeck, M. and B. de-Bouverne. 2006. “Children’s Agency and Educational Norms: A Tensed Negotiation.” Childhood (13): 127–143; Dockett, S., J. Einarsdottir, and B. Perry. 2009. “Researching with Children: Ethical Tensions.” Journal of Early Childhood Research (7): 283–298; Clark, A., and P. Moss. 2011. Listening to Young Children: The Mosaic Approach. 2nd ed. London: National Children’s Bureau]. The increased involvement required of children in participatory research heightens ethical and methodological concerns [Lundy, L., L. McEvoy, and B. Byrne. 2011. “Working with Young Children as Co-researchers: An Approach Informed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.” Early Education and Development 22 (5): 714–736]. Rather than focusing on ethical considerations identified prior to the research through standard institutional vetting practices, the gaze of this article lies on ethics-in-action, or ethical considerations emerging throughout research processes. Thus, a focus on ethical encounters throughout the course of school-based fieldwork is framed by the examination of three emerging ‘ethically important moments’ [Guillemin, M. and L. Gillam. 2004. “Ethics, Reflexivity and Ethically Important Moments in Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 10: 261–280]. Themes of representation and researcher relationships are explored as part of this discussion. Mindful of its primary stakeholders, the participant children, the merits for viewing research conducted within the institution of school as an unfolding process of this research, are outlined. The paper concludes that in the interests of both rigour and effect, methodological reflexivity be brought to bear on the varying and complex ethical encounters educational research constitutes.

This exploratory study examines the role virtual reality can play in student speech practice for oral communication courses. The study focuses on situational communication apprehension of the virtu...

A positive, pre-speech self-talk experience was used to assess the influence on student performance anxiety in a variety of disciplines. The findings suggest that having students recite aloud a sel...

The purpose of this study was to investigate communication mindset changes across one semester of the introductory communication course and differences across students’ demographic backgrou...

We investigate the effectiveness of combining Socratic Circles with case-based learning in an undergraduate class as a means of both helping students overcome their reluctance to speak publicly and...

Addressing student public speaking anxiety (PSA) through an introductory speaking course is a fundamental pedagogical touchpoint. The current study replicates and extends PSA research by seeking to...

The use of group-based, task-oriented, peer interaction formats in classroom and public L2 speaking tests has grown in recent years. However, these assessments have received comparatively little at...

E-journaling invites students to reflect upon and synthesize their experiences, readings, discussions, and presentations in a series of electronic entries, usually viewed only by the student and th...

As many colleges and universities offer increasing numbers of online courses and degree programs, debates regarding teaching public speaking online continue. This research utilizes Kluger and DeNis...

Courses: The exercise is designed for an introduction to public-speaking course or a “basic course” with a major public-speaking assignment.Objectives: By the end of this activity, students will be...

This study researched the effect of peer-led leadership workshops on the perception of leadership skills among middle school children in India. Five hundred ninety-eight 10- to 14-year-old students...

This essay proposes a view of public speaking as “interventional” that incorporates and subsumes the traditional speaking goals of informative, persuasive, and invitational. Additionally, t...

Courses: Public speaking.Objective: This activity introduces and activates Monroe's Motivated Sequence.

We assessed the effectiveness of an integrated engineering public-speaking class relative to a traditionally taught public-speaking class. The integrated class was designed to meet the grow...

The American First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was a prolific writer, public speaker and broadcaster. She appeared on her own radio programs in the 1930s, 40s and 50s and those of others, both in the US and abroad. In many of her daily newspaper columns over the years, Mrs. Roosevelt spoke of the importance of international radio and seemed to suggest there was a unique role for the medium as a way to reach ordinary men and women. Of the Voice of America, she said it played a vital role in spreading understanding of the American way of life and American democracy. This paper looks at American broadcasting to France in the early Cold War and considers two broadcasts Mrs. Roosevelt made while in France with the United Nations: a 1948 episode of the program Changement de Decors and a series of weekly talks about the UN for the French service in 1951–52.

This paper evaluates ‘brand me’ presentations as a method for developing employability-related self-confidence (ERSC). Measurements of ERSC were taken at three points in time from a sample of 105 full-time business and law students at a UK university. These were analysed alongside student feedback, assessment artefacts, and semi-structured interviews with students and lecturers. Findings indicate that ERSC increases over time, skills are learnt, and new behaviours are developed. We contribute to sustainable graduate employability literature by empirically demonstrating theoretically proposed links between career management learning and ERSC. Furthermore, we show that self-confidence may be a situated behaviour, rather than a fixed trait, which generates practical suggestions for career management teaching. We join the teaching excellence debate by demonstrating a method to measure learning gain in higher education. We also add to research methods knowledge by adapting an evaluation framework from the Human Resource Development field for use in this context.

We often have little evidence of success to take to stakeholders in the preliminary stages of restoration projects. However, presenting initial monitoring data can allow for impactful science commu...

The purpose of this study was to find out whether the previously identified gender gap in public speaking anxiety and self-perceived communication competence was also evident in student spe...

How can we merge the science of politics and the practice of politics into a single course? In a 16-week, upper division course on state politics, I address the need to develop students’ social sci...

Courses: Public Speaking, Advanced Public Speaking, Capstone Courses.Objective: This activity is designed to help students identify different components of an elevator speech and assemble elevator ...

Courses: Public Speaking, Rhetorical Criticism, Persuasion, Political Communication, and Media Communication.Objectives: By the end of this activity, students should be able to: explain the key com...

This paper investigates the advantages of using a two-step homework system. First, technology is used to collect and grade traditional homework. Then, students are expected to present and explain p...

Previous studies of grading as instructional feedback reveal contrary patterns of motivation among public speaking students. That is, in some cases students who received lower grades on their initi...

The process of engaging in classroom research provides teacher candidates with opportunities to enter into the kind of deep, self-reflective work that we believe is an important capacity to build i...

Fitzmaurice Voicework (FV) is a voice training technique used to create sustainable, healthy, and dynamic sound while allowing for flexibility and spontaneity in performance. Teacher certif...

This paper examines how interpreting quality is evaluated by peer students in an English-Chinese simultaneous interpreting class. In the study, 18 students received training on how to evaluate inte...

With China’s rising role in the global economic market, both local and international employers seek graduates with well-developed communication skills in at least one additional language to...

Students wishing to be entrepreneurs have a great need for role models to serve as inspiration and help them envision their future organization. Universities often use guest speakers for this purpo...