The Influence of Beliefs & Expectations on Public Speaking Anxiety

In higher institutions, public speaking is almost a compulsory component for many end-of -semester assessments. While many students managed the presentations, many are reported to have anxiety when it comes to public speaking. Some fear public speaking because of the pressure to do well. Some have public anxiety because they lacked confidence. What cause public speaking anxiety? This quantitative pilot study is done to explore fear of public speaking factors among undergraduates. The instrument used is a 5 Likert-scale survey. With reference to table 1 above, scale 1 refers to never and scale 2 refers to rarely. Meanwhile, scale 3 refers to sometimes, scale 4 is sometimes while scale 5 refers to always. The instrument is anchored from the classic processes in self-fulfilling prophecy by Merton (1948) with the items replicated from Bartholomay & Houlihan (2016) on public speaking anxiety. Findings revealed interesting sources of public speaking anxiety as well as relationship among the affected variables. The highest mean is the speakers’ beliefs & expectations. These results of this study revealed relationships between beliefs & expectations and behaviour. There is also an association between behaviour and results; as well as association between beliefs & expectations and results. The findings of this study bear interesting implications towards sources of public speaking. The findings also added to a body of literature regarding public speaking anxiety among undergraduates.