Assessing Success: The Impacts of a Fundamentals of Speech Course on Decreasing Public Speaking Anxiety

Abstract

Despite assessment's prominence in higher education, many communication departments still find its implementation problematic. In this case study, we answer a call for heightened research pertaining to the best practices for assessment of large, multisection, standardized public speaking courses. We demonstrate the ease with which the basic course can be justified to administrators by citing the course's significant reduction of students' Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA) as assessed by one of the discipline's standard measures of PSA, the Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety. Implications include validation of a course design and assessment that provide administration with measures of significant and salient success, and an especially profound positive impact of the course for women.