Abstract
Despite a growing body of research on instructor techniques and treatments to mitigate public speaking anxiety, this issue remains prominent, especially among university students. An alternative to mitigating such anxiety is to identify authentic coping strategies that university students could practice in actual situations. Numerous studies have attempted to explore students’ personal and social factors with the objective of suggesting suitable coping strategies to reduce the fear of public speaking. This paper reviews the existing evidence to understand the complexities of strategies that university students use to reduce their fear of public speaking.  Nine peer-reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2020 were selected for this review from Science Direct and Google Scholar, using search terms such as “public speaking anxiety” and “coping strategies.” The analysis revealed that university students who (a) had an intermediate level of English language proficiency and a high level of speaking anxiety adopted both compensation and metacognitive strategies; (b) had a high level of English language proficiency and speaking anxiety adopted the affective strategy; and (c) had a high level of speaking anxiety and were exposed to full English medium instruction contexts adopted both social and memory strategies. This review, therefore, provides a better understanding of how university students cope with public speaking anxiety and at the same time urges educators to refine their pedagogical methods to lower the psychological barrier of speaking.
Highlights
From schooling to professional activities, being well-versed in English and able to communicate effectively are prerequisites to increasing one’s competence in the professional world (Pandey & Pandey, 2014)
Despite many researchers’ efforts to explore authentic coping strategies to mitigate the fear of public speaking among university students, most Malaysian graduates still find it difficult to converse in English at job interviews (Mehar Singh & Chuah, 2012)
University students who (a) have an intermediate level of English language proficiency and high level of speaking anxiety could opt for compensation and metacognitive strategies; (b) have high levels of English language proficiency and speaking anxiety could opt for the affective strategy; and (c) have a high level of speaking anxiety and were exposed to full English medium instruction contexts could opt for social and memory strategies
Summary
From schooling to professional activities, being well-versed in English and able to communicate effectively are prerequisites to increasing one’s competence in the professional world (Pandey & Pandey, 2014). Despite many researchers’ efforts to explore authentic coping strategies to mitigate the fear of public speaking among university students, most Malaysian graduates still find it difficult to converse in English at job interviews (Mehar Singh & Chuah, 2012). The reason for such inequity is because there is a limited understanding of different student backgrounds and the instructional environment that they encounter. The objective of this review is to highlight studies of the coping methods that university students use to help reduce their anxiety and thereby help educators refine pedagogical methods to cater to students’ needs
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