Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate how in-person communication center coaching influences the self-reported levels of public speaking anxiety for online public speaking students at a small Midwestern university. The study examined pre-speech and post-speech anxiety levels using McCroskey’s (1970) Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) scale, two open-ended questions, and four closed-ended questions. The survey was administered to 510 first year students enrolled in 22 sections of the Fall 2014 online public speaking course. Of those students, three sections of approximately 25 students were randomly chosen to participate in a public speaking coaching program and receive in-person coaching from a communication center consultant. The researcher conducted a quasi-experimental convergent parallel mixed methods study to evaluate changes in the coached participants’ levels of public speaking anxiety from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester. Results indicated that communication center coaching had no significant influence on public speaking anxiety levels. While coaching had no significant influence, results from the entire participant sample did indicate the online public speaking course might assist in lowering participants’ public speaking anxiety levels. Qualitative data specified factors that lowered participants’ speaking anxiety levels and issues that increased speaking anxiety. Implications of the study further documented and analyzed reported causes of public speaking anxiety, including those defined by Buss (1980) such as novelty, unfamiliarity, formality, subordinate status, conspicuousness, degree of attention from others, and dissimilarity. |Keywords: online public speaking, communication center, public speaking anxiety