Increasing Student Self-Efficacy: A Case for Assigning Oral Communication Activities before Written Assignments

Abstract

Because strong oral communication skills have well-known academic, social, and professional benefits, they are increasingly targeted and reinforced throughout general education programs in higher education. In these efforts, public speaking assignments most often ask students to discuss information they have previously written about (e.g., theses defenses, position statements, research papers). This article presents a reverse approach—using short oral presentations to prepare students for subsequent written assignments. Previous studies have found that students will more closely read and evaluate source materials when they must articulate the information orally for an audience. Integrating oral presentations in the writing process gives students practice with language and vocabulary, but maybe more importantly, it also has the potential to increase students’ self-efficacy—their confidence in their ability to understand and successfully complete additional research-related activities—which can, in turn, positively affect engagement and retention.