UNVEILING THE AVIATION AND AEROSPACE STUDENTS' ANXIETY OF PUBLIC SPEAKING AND CLASSROOM PRESENTATION IN ENGLISH: BASIS FOR POLICY MAKING AND SCHOOL-BASED TRAINING

Public speaking and classroom presentation anxiety among students have been long-standing issues in educational settings. This research aims determine the relationship of students’ presentation anxiety to their academic performance as well as to have an in-depth exploration of their experiences, feelings, tribulations and the over-all impact of presentation anxiety in their lives. On the basis of descriptive and sequential study design, this academic paper utilizes an eclectic approach in extracting data through procedural phase critically following the mixed methods explanatory sequential research methods. An initial investigation on the level of oral presentation anxiety of the aviation and aerospace students was conducted in quantitative part, the Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) instrument by McCroskey (1986) was adapted. It was administered by the researcher together with the demographic profile. Qualitative part followed, where the researcher conducted an open-ended interview with those students who were identified to have high level of anxiety. It was revealed that public speaking and oral presentation anxiety among students does not have a significant effect on their Grade Point Average (Z=0.49, p=0.621). In terms of the students’ profile, the tribe of students significantly affects their PRPSA level (Z=-1.99, P=0.046). However, regardless of age, gender, household members and economic status of students, their PRPSA level remains unaffected (Z=1.01, -0.40, -0.36, -0.20, P=0.313, 0.687, 0.715, 0.845). The most common themes revealed that the students feel nervous, afraid of judgments, lack of confidence, pressure, self-consciousness and overwhelming stage fright during oral presentations.