Many states offer police and corrections officer certification through state approved police basic training, either after hire (in-service) or before hire (preservice). Only large agencies conduct their own basic training academies after being hired. The trend is to save money through preservice training offered by colleges. This especially…

Objectives: Authors assessed the impact of a public-speaking competition on the level of interest in psychiatry of Ghanaian medical students. Method: An inter-medical school public-speaking competition was organized to promote psychiatry as a fulfilling career option for Ghanaian medical students. Feedback questionnaires were completed by the…

Mind mapping has gained considerable credibility recently in corporations such as Boeing and Nabisco, as well as in the classroom in terms of preparing for examinations and preparing for speeches. A mind map is a graphic technique for organizing an individual's thoughts and other information. It harnesses the full range of cortical skills--word,…

The notion of pedagogy of hope has been conceptualised and symbolised as a significant conciliatory and propelling vision for the University of Stellenbosch. Yet few representations of hope engage with the historical and theoretical roots of this notion. These perspectives are crucial to understand in order to provide a foundation on which to…

This research examined what causes speech-production-related foreign-language anxiety among Indonesian students majoring in English Language Education. Furthermore, it also looks into whether and how self-reflective activities are able to help these students reduce their anxiety. The data were gathered from a qualitative research conducted on a…

Forty science students received training for 12 weeks on delivering effective presentations and using a tertiary-level English oral presentation scale comprising three subscales (Verbal Communication, Nonverbal Communication, and Content and Organization) measured by 18 items. For their final project, each student was given 10 to 12 min to present…

Oral communication courses traditionally help students identify the proper arrangement of words to convey particular images. Although instructors emphasize the importance of speaking powerfully, they often struggle to find effective ways to teach their students "how" to deliver a message that resonates with the audience. Given the clear importance…

The study was conducted to examine whether the components of Relevance and Confidence from the ARCS motivational model affect academic performance and course satisfaction differently. The participants were students of an online public speaking course at a southern U.S. public university. They were divided into three groups, Relevance, Confidence,…

On May 31, 1897, William James, one of America's most influential philosophers and psychologists, delivered the first civic oration of his career. The principal orator at the dedication of the Robert Gould Shaw memorial in Boston, James did what commemorative speakers are not supposed to do. He chose to be confrontational and divisive in a…

Public speaking anxiety (PSA) is a common social phobia. Although cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) is the treatment of choice, difficulties arise with both in vivo and in vitro exposure (lack of therapist control, patient's inability to imagine, self-flooding, and a lack of confidentiality resulting from public exposure). Virtual reality CBT…

Objectives: This pilot study evaluated the effectiveness of one-session, exposure-based therapy, to treat social anxiety disorder (SAD) with specific fear of public speaking. Methods: A quasi-experimental pre-posttest design with repeated measures-within-subject Analysis of Variance and paired sample t-tests was used to compare pretest, posttest…

The main purpose of learning a foreign language is to use it for meaningful and effective communication both inside and outside the classroom. This paper is devoted to identifying the main communication difficulties faced by EFL students at King Khalid University (KKU) and exploring the reasons that lie behind these difficulties. The paper…

In this digital age, e-textbooks are becoming more prevalent. This assessment surveys a group of public speaking students on their attitudes toward an e-textbook. A qualitative and quantitative approach to collecting student feedback using an online survey reveals mixed reviews of students' use of an e-textbook. In an introductory public speaking…

In response to the demand for increased accountability within the university classroom, there have been calls for a new generation of rubrics that effectively assess students' competence in several areas, including public speaking. This article describes the development, test, and factor analyses of the Public Speaking Competence Rubric (PSCR), an…

In recent years increasing research attention has been devoted to the definition and development of presentation skills. As an interactive oral discourse type, the presentation is characterised by specific speech acts, of which cooperative acts have proved to be of a highly developmental nature (Sazdovska, 2009). The aim of the present paper is to…