James Callaghan's speech at Ruskin College, Oxford in October 1976 is widely considered a pivotal moment in modern English educational policy. Whilst it is not our intention to challenge this fundamental point, the paper will critically interrogate some long-held assumptions about the motivation that led Callaghan to deliver his speech at Ruskin…

This paper considers the process of becoming an international public intellectual, taking the case of Maria Montessori (1870-1952), the Italian physician who became an authority on education and, unusually for a woman, a public intellectual. The focus is on her experience from the age of 12 which contributed to her emergence on the international…

Strong communication skills are important in an individual's personal and professional life; however, research regarding what influences youth's public speaking self-efficacy is limited. To address this gap, we surveyed youth who participated in a statewide presentation event about their self-efficacy and sources of that self-efficacy. Results…

Courses: Public speaking. Objectives: This assignment reduces speech anxiety through the affect-reframing power of gratitude, and enables students to consolidate their gains by experiencing social support from a staff mentor.

Workforce variables routinely place top-of-mind for corporate decision makers in choosing where to locate. This article presents an experiential exercise in which students simulate human resource consultants in a site selection exercise. Suitable for face-to-face or online classes, students work individually, pitching their chosen state to other…

Stage fright is a natural and very common phenomenon that affects everyone who must present themselves in public. However, it has a negative impact on the health and voice emission of children and adolescents, which is why it is important to study and measure it. Unfortunately, there are no appropriate tools for examining public presentation…

The integration of sports-related contexts into mathematics education, along with the inclusion of guest speakers in classroom settings, is a widely acknowledged pedagogical strategy. This study employs a descriptive research approach to analyze a didactic activity conducted with 86 third-year students pursuing a Degree in Primary Education at the…

This research examines the implementation of virtual reality into an effective speaking course at a small business college in New England. The researchers detail how they piloted the use of MetaQuest 2 headsets to students for round-the-clock availability of public speaking software in an Effective Speaking course. Students were administered a…

Oral communication and presentation skills are considered key competencies for many academic fields and professions, including science-related ones. Therefore, it is vital that students are given sufficient class time in the curriculum for practicing public speaking. It is well documented in the literature that video technology can be of valuable…

The purpose of this article is to provide guidance for instructors who wish to develop a course associated with student participation in the College Fed Challenge (CFC), an academic competition designed to test students' knowledge of current economic events and monetary policy. We eschew a lecture-only methodology and use small-group and…

This longitudinal study examined the relationship between two content formats of the basic communication course (BCC) and first-year college student retention over a 4-year period (N = 5,653). Chi-square and logistic regression models indicated students who completed the BCC were more likely to be retained than those who did not complete the BCC.…

The use of guest speakers in college classes is a well-accepted pedagogical practice, but the academic literature has generally been based on instructors' or event organizers' anecdotal reflections about individual experiences. Research based upon student considerations of this practice has been especially sparse. The purpose of this study is to…

Effective presentation skills are an important ability for students and professionals to possess. Automatic analysis of presentation skills can help provide feedback to a speaker, and a complete analysis is possible only with both speaker and audience measurement. In this article, we propose a methodology to predict presentation skills on a small…

Past applications of virtual reality (VR) and related research have provided evidence that VR technology is helpful for educational and training purposes and that it can be used as a therapeutic measure. Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) may, therefore, be beneficial in reducing public speaking anxiety (PSA), which is a very common…

Guided by both the interactionist and sociocultural learning theories, this study investigates the interactive communications in text-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and face-to-face (FTF) oral communication environments and the impacts they bring to subsequent L2 Chinese speaking. Learners' perspectives on using…