Fear of Public Speaking

Beatty and Friedland (1990) studied the relative contribution of state and trait factors on fear of public speaking. Trait factors were found to be better predictors than state factors, in particular the factors of perceived novelty (seeing the audience from the perspective of the speaker), conspicuousness, and subordinate status were found to be strong predictors of public speaking state anxiety (as measured by the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension questionnaire). Indeed, in a similar study, Beatty (1988) replicated these findings and further observed that dissimilarity and degree of prior history of speech-making were also significant predictors of anxiety levels.

In another study examining for contributors to fear of public speaking, Daly, Vangelisti and Lawr

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2) 87 college freshmen enrolled in Speech I classes at Moorpark College. Speech I is a class that is required of all Moorpark College students. The high school from which seniors were drawn did not offer speech classes. Procedures In each of the social studies classes at Moorpark High School and in the three speech classes at Moorpark College, teachers (during the first class meeting) asked students if they would voluntarily participate in the study by completing the research instrument. All students agreed. They then completed the study's test instrument which was the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension questionnaire (McCroskey, 1978), and returned them to their teachers. Thus, students were volunteer subjects. Instrument The study's measure of public speaking anxiety was the P.R.C.A. which according to McCroskey (1977, 1978) yields reliability coefficients that average .90. McCroskey also reports good validity for the test instrument and notes that it has been used in a wide variety of research. Further, Daly (1978) has observed not only strong test-retest reliabilities for the P.R.C.A. but also strong internal reliability. Data Analysis All statistics conducted in the study were descriptive in nature. Speci
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Approximate Word count = 5505
Approximate Pages = 22 (250 words per page)

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