Impacts of self-reported communication perception and shyness on the public speaking assessment of university students.
Daniel Lucas Picanço Marchand, Lucas Sávio Rodrigues Carvalho, Diego de Souza Leal and 4 others
PMID 36259821WHAT IT FOUND
Students who saw themselves as good communicators scored 17 points higher on a public speaking comfort scale than those who did not.
Those who were very shy scored 16 points lower than non-shy peers. Self-perception of communication and shyness strongly tracked with comfort in public speaking.
Key findings
01Self-perception as a good communicator was associated with significantly higher comfort in public speaking, with a mean difference of 17 points on the SSPS scale between those who did and did not consider themselves good communicators.
02Students who identified as very shy had lower public speaking comfort scores (mean 22.23) compared to those who did not consider themselves shy (mean 38.67).
03Correlations between public speaking comfort and communication perception or shyness were weak to moderate, ranging from 0.37 to 0.49.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study relies entirely on self-reported data, which may be influenced by social desirability or inaccurate self-assessment. Data collection was virtual, meaning participants answered without researcher support or clarification, potentially leading to misinterpretation of questions. The design is cross-sectional, so it cannot determine if poor communication self-perception causes public speaking anxiety or if anxiety leads to poor self-perception. The sample consisted only of university students in Brazil, limiting generalizability to other populations or clinical groups.
Declared interests
The study was funded by FAPERGS.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the weak to moderate correlations as evidence that treating shyness or communication self-perception will directly cure public speaking anxiety. The study shows an association between these traits and comfort levels, but does not test any intervention or establish causality.