An assessment of curricular methods to reduce communication apprehension among public speaking students

This study investigated curricular methods to reduce communication apprehension among public speaking students. Previous research has found many intervention strategies to be successful in reducing levels of communication apprehension, including both visualization and cognitive restructuring. However, prior research has failed to examine the efficacy of such techniques within the context of teaching a public speaking course that has limited time to devote to these techniques. Consequently, an experiment was conducted which examined whether a one hour instructional unit using cognitive restructuring and visualization can reduce levels of communication apprehension among public speaking students. The results of the study indicate that a one hour instructional unit does not reduce the anxiety of high communication apprehensive students in a public speaking course