Oral Presentation Skills Research Articles

Rubric formats for the formative assessment of oral presentation skills acquisition in secondary education

Acquiring complex oral presentation skills is cognitively demanding for students and demands intensive teacher guidance. The aim of this study was twofold: (a) to identify and apply design guidelines in developing an effective formative assessment method for oral presentation skills during classroom practice, and (b) to develop and compare two analytic rubric formats as part of that assessment method. Participants were first-year secondary school students in the Netherlands (n = 158) that acquired oral presentation skills with the support of either a formative assessment method with analytic rubrics offered through a dedicated online tool (experimental groups), or a method using more conventional (rating scales) rubrics (control group). One experimental group was provided text-based and the other was provided video-enhanced rubrics. No prior research is known about analytic video-enhanced rubrics, but, based on research on complex skill development and multimedia learning, we expected this format to best capture the (non-verbal aspects of) oral presentation performance. Significant positive differences on oral presentation performance were found between the experimental groups and the control group. However, no significant differences were found between both experimental groups. This study shows that a well-designed formative assessment method, using analytic rubric formats, outperforms formative assessment using more conventional rubric formats. It also shows that higher costs of developing video-enhanced analytic rubrics cannot be justified by significant more performance gains. Future studies should address the generalizability of such formative assessment methods for other contexts, and for complex skills other than oral presentation, and should lead to more profound understanding of video-enhanced rubrics.

The use of EPA assessments in decision-making: Do supervision ratings correlate with other measures of clinical performance?

Background Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) have been introduced as a framework for teaching and assessment in competency-based educational programs. With growing use, has come a call to examine the validity of EPA assessments. We sought to explore the correlation of EPA assessments with other clinical performance measures to support use of supervision ratings in decisions about medical students’ curricular progression. Methods Spearman rank coefficients were used to determine correlation of supervision ratings from EPA assessments with scores on clerkship evaluations and performance on an end-of-clerkship-year Objective Structured Clinical Examination (CPX). Results Both overall clinical evaluation items score (rho 0.40; n = 166) and CPX patient encounter domain score (rho 0.31; n = 149) showed significant correlation with students’ overall mean EPA supervision rating during the clerkship year. There was significant correlation between mean supervision rating for EPA assessments of history, exam, note, and oral presentation skills with scores for these skills on clerkship evaluations; less so on the CPX. Conclusions Correlation of EPA supervision ratings with commonly used clinical performance measures offers support for their use in undergraduate medical education. Data supporting the validity of EPA assessments promotes stakeholders’ acceptance of their use in summative decisions about students’ readiness for increased patient care responsibility.

A Nexus of Group Learning and Collaborative Learning Facilities in Stimulating Oral Interaction of Learners: A Case of Saudi Arabia

The collaborative learning environment promotes socialization and learning among the students. Therefore, the present study has focused on stimulating oral interaction among students through group and collaborative learning. A qualitative survey study was conducted by selecting ten tenth-grade male students with ages ranging between 14 and 15 years. A total of 10 students were randomly selected from collaborative learning classrooms and were asked about their experiences in that particular environment. The data gathered through interviews were transcribed and presented in the form of themes to highlight students’ perceptions towards a collaborative learning environment. The results demonstrated that most students perceived that the collaborative learning environment was very beneficial for them. It built self-confidence, improved their oral presentation skills, made them responsible, performed diverse tasks, and respected opinions. Therefore, it is suggested that collaborative learning concepts should be implemented in EFL education programs for in-service and pre-service teachers.

Engaging Rural High School Students in STEM Utilizing Graduate Mentors, Virtual Reality and Case‐based Learning

High school students exposed to early mentorship opportunities and targeted development of critical thinking skills are better prepared for success in higher education. Rural high school students can face barriers that limit access to content experts and scholastic growth. Here we demonstrate the use of a virtual reality (VR) curriculum as a novel method of instruction, fostering mentorship and the development of critical thinking skills. Graduate mentors remotely connected with high school students to facilitate learning using a virtual, dissectible cadaver and volumized medical imaging (CT and MRI). The curriculum features weekly case-based learning exercises, providing students an opportunity to develop problem solving, critical thinking and oral presentation skills. We hypothesized that VR is an effective method of connecting high school students to graduate mentors and novel STEM learning opportunities, while the VR case-based curriculum enhances critical thinking skill and helps prepare students to succeed in higher education. Qualitative data assessed critical thinking, problem-solving skills, student motivation, mentorship engagement, and satisfaction utilizing the VR program as compared to 2D methods. Quantitative data assessed progression of student spatial abilities during the semester. Preliminary findings suggest an improvement in student interest and engagement while promoting intellectual engagement with graduate mentors. Research on the implementation of virtual reality in education is in its early stages, but there is a growing need to investigate the effectiveness of technology in overcoming barriers to learning among high school students. This course is an early exploration of how VR can enhance STEM teaching, improve student learning, and prepare students for success in higher education.

Ultra-Short Presentations with Immediate in-Class Public Feedback to Enhance Skill Development with Low Class Time and Instructor Time

The development of oral presentation skills requires multiple opportunities to present and receive focused feedback. In typical discipline-based and general-education courses, class time is precious, and even when oral presentations are part of a course, students may receive only one or two opportunities to present with feedback. Here we describe an approach to develop presentation skills with ultra-short, one-minute presentations followed immediately by brief, supportive, focused, public in-class instructor feedback. Feedback is offered as one positive comment (one thing I liked) and one targeted goal for improvement (one thing to work on). The short time frame maximizes the number of iterative cycles of practice, feedback, and implementation of feedback. This approach was used with students in several semester-long courses offering three to eight opportunities to present. Students took anonymous surveys immediately after the course experience and again up to two and a half years post-experience. Over 95% reported that they learned a great deal about how to improve their own presentations by watching other presentations and hearing the instructor’s immediate feedback. Respondents reported lasting gains in skills, increased confidence in their public speaking abilities, and all would recommend the experience to others.

Promoting Oral Presentation Skills Through Drama-Based Tasks with an\xa0Authentic Audience: A Longitudinal Study

Drama activities are reported to foster language learning, and may prepare learners for oral skills that mirror those used in real life. This year-long time series classroom-based quasi-experimental study followed a between-subjects design in which two classes of college EFL learners were exposed to two oral training conditions: (1) an experimental one in which drama-based training pedagogy was employed; and (2) the comparison one in which ordinary public speaking pedagogy was utilized. The experimental participants dramatized a picture book into a play, refined and rehearsed it for the classroom audience, and eventually performed it publicly as a theater production for community children. Diachronic comparisons of the participants’ oral presentation skills under the two conditions showed that a significant between-group difference began to become pronounced only after the experimental participants started to present for real-life audiences other than their classmates. This finding suggests that drama-mediated pedagogy effectively enhanced the experimental participants’ presentation performance and became more effective than the traditional approach only after a real-life audience was involved. In addition to the participants’ performance data, survey and retrospective protocols were utilized to shed light on how drama-based tasks targeting both classroom and authentic audiences influence college EFL learners’ presentation performance and their self-perceived oral presentation skills. Analysis of the survey and retrospective data indicated that the participants’ attention to three presentation skills—structure, audience adaptation and content—was significantly raised after their presentation involved a real-life audience. Based on these findings, pedagogical implications for drama for FL oral presentation instruction are discussed.

Designing and Implementing a Novel Virtual Rounds Curriculum for Medical Students' Internal Medicine Clerkship During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

IntroductionDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, third-year medical students were temporarily unable to participate in onsite clinical activities. We identified the curricular components of an internal medicine (IM) clerkship that would be compromised if students learned solely from online didactics, case studies, and simulations (i.e., prerounding, oral presentations, diagnostic reasoning, and medical management discussions). Using these guiding principles, we created a virtual rounds (VR) curriculum to provide IM clerkship students with clinical exposure during a virtual learning period.MethodsHeld three times a week for 2 weeks, VR consisted of three curricular components. First, clerkship students prerounded on an assigned hospitalized patient by remotely accessing the electronic health record and calling into hospital rounds. Second, each student prepared an oral presentation on their assigned patient. Third, using videoconferencing, students delivered these oral presentations to telemedicine VR small groups consisting of three to four students and three tele-instructors. Tele-instructors then provided feedback on oral presentations and taught clinical concepts. We assessed the effectiveness of VR by anonymously surveying students and tele-instructors.ResultsTwenty-nine students and 34 volunteer tele-instructors participated in VR over four blocks. A majority of students felt VR improved their prerounding abilities (86%), oral presentation abilities (93%), and clinical reasoning skills (62%). All students found small group to be useful.DiscussionVR allowed students to practice rounding skills in a supportive team-based setting. The lessons learned from its implementation could facilitate education during future pandemics and could also supplement in-person clerkship education.

Satisfying Program-Level Outcomes by Integrating Primary Literature into the Online Classroom.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a paradigm shift from traditional classroom instruction to remote online modalities. To provide the most current and relevant information on nuclear medicine technology to students without access to traditional resources on a college campus, it has become imperative that primary literature within the field be made readily accessible. Nuclear medicine technology students at Bronx Community College are being taught to use the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology as the basis for their required presentations, which span the curriculum. Guided by instructors who are armed with a rubric ultimately used as a formative assessment tool, the students are required to explore current articles from the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology and ultimately present their findings to their cohort. By design, this article-share project has successfully been implemented as a principal metric in satisfying the program accreditation requirements of the Joint Review Committee on Nuclear Medicine Technology while also being conducive to increasing oral presentation skills and cohort socialization.

Self-Efficacy Practice in Oral Presentation Through Self- Reflection among Pre-Service Teachers in Institute of Teacher Education

Self-efficacy is the driving force that makes people pursue a goal and overcome obstacles. Through numerous studies, students with a high sense of efficacy have the capacity to accept more challenging tasks, have higher abilities to organize their time, increase persistence in the face of obstacles, and exhibit lower anxiety levels. In this study, pre-service teachers have oral presentation anxiety, which overcomes their feelings by practicing self-efficacy such as intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness and self-enhancement through self-reflections after oral presentations. Data for this study were obtained through self-reflection and interviews administered to 13 pre-service teachers at an Institute of Teacher Education to investigate their self-efficacy practices to overcome oral performance anxiety in presenting the topics and analyzed thematically. Self-reflection is obtained through Schoology Learning Management System (LMS), written self-reflection and interviews. The pre-service teachers practiced self-efficacy that is self-enhancement – therefore, this information contributes to the new knowledge following earlier research. The findings revealed that pre-service teachers' self-reflection depicted their self-efficacy practice such as intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness and self-enhancement. The study's practical implications show that self-reflection has a positive impact on the pre-service teachers' oral presentation skills. This significantly contributes to turning the pre-service teachers into independent, life-long learners. &nbsp

Grit as a Moderator Between Students’ Intention and Oral Presentation Performance: A Conceptual Study

Effective communication skills at the workplace are acknowledged as a highly sought skill by employers among university students. However, an incongruity between employers’ expectations and students’ actual communication skills has been highlighted. An imperative subset of communication skills is oral presentation skills, which are found to be unsatisfactory among students. Thus, this conceptual study proposes examining the moderating influence of grit on the relationship between students’ intention to present and their oral presentation performance. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) is based upon modeling the relationship between students’ intention, grit, and oral presentation performance. A quantitative method will be adopted using a questionnaire survey for the data collection. Simple random sampling will be employed to select respondents. The study involves a three-stage research process comprising (1) a pre-test, (2) a pilot study, and (3) actual fieldwork. The data obtained from the pilot study will be subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using SPSS. Subsequently, AMOS will use the data from the actual fieldwork for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and moderation analysis. Results of the analyses are expected to provide more conclusive evidence on the strength of grit in influencing the relationship between students’ intention and their oral presentation performance.

Critical Psychiatry Debates; A Neglected Tool in Undergraduate Medical Education.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Background: Healthcare professionals must adapt to everyday clinical controversies using their critical thinking and communication skills. Educational debates nurture these skills producing a well-rounded clinician. Their value is well established in healthcare education, yet they are not commonly employed, and there is no literature on their use in undergraduate Psychiatry teaching. Methods: We planned and implemented a one-off educational debate lesson as part of the teaching program of fourth-year medical students on their Psychiatry clinical placements. We collected and analyzed the students' feedback. Results: Although most students had no experience of debates, 79% found the learning event positive. The students also reported improvement in their confidence (58%), oral presentation skills (37%), critical thinking skills (71%) and the ability to cope with conflict (54%). In addition, there was a positive shift in their attitude towards Psychiatry (71%) and the chances of choosing it as a future speciality (33%). Conclusion: Our results showcase the benefit of using debates in shaping future doctors' non-clinical skills and practice attitudes. In this paper, we discuss a thematic analysis of students' feedback comments and reflect on several points in the planning and delivering educational debates. We also include practical recommendations for future applications.

Pre-service Teachers’ Oral Presentation Anxiety in The Second Language in A Teacher Training Institute

Oral presentation skills are viewed as essential in terms of the pre-service teachers’ pre-service teachers professional development. They feel anxious in oral presentation that can be categorised as fear of negative evaluation (FNE), test anxiety (TA), communication apprehension (CA) as well as topic and content anxiety (TCA). Specifically, the study investigate oral presentation anxiety associated to the themes namely FNE, TA, CA and TCA in the English language classroom. Data for this study was obtained through written self-reflection that was administered to 14 pre-service teachers in Institute of Teacher Education to investigate their oral presentation anxiety before and after the oral presentation. Findings put forward that most of the students express their feelings, attitudes and thoughts with oral presentation anxiety when they have to talk English in the classroom from different themes. The lecturers will have the awareness about the oral presentation anxiety to plan the teaching and learning in oral presentation classroom.

The active feedback program: bringing medical students out of the shadows

ABSTRACT Despite many advances in medical education, medical students continue to mostly shadow on inpatient rotations like Neurology. They seldom receive face-to-face feedback or mentorship from attending physicians. This results from not training attending physicians how to integrate medical students into clinical activities in a way that does not detract from patient rounds. The ‘active feedback program’ is a framework for inpatient rotations that immerses medical students in clinical activities with the attending physician providing mentorship and feedback that emphasizes brevity. Expectations are laid out early. Students pick up 2–3 patients, performing daily oral reports and focused neurological exams with immediate feedback. Feedback includes items to not only correct the treatment plan, but also improve the student’s oral presentation and neurological exam skills. Students also receive formal individual feedback twice during the rotation that includes constructive criticism and specific task-oriented praise. The active feedback program awaits formal testing, but seems to result in medical students learning at an accelerated rate. Neurology residents also appear to benefit by learning from critiques of the medical students and taking on higher level responsibilities. Patient rounds move quickly, leaving time for the attending physician to keep up with other obligations. As academic Neurologists we have a duty to transfer our skills to the next generation of physicians. If proven in future studies, wide adoption of the active feedback program will allow us to finally move medical students out of the shadows and come closer to achieving this noble goal.

Attendings’ Perceptions of Authentic Evaluation Criteria for Effective Surgical Consults

The authors aimed to investigate faculty evaluation criteria for an effective oral surgical presentation in actual patient care contexts. We conducted a 2-step observation-based qualitative study. Residents audiotaped oral presentations of a surgical consult to an attending. Evaluation panels listened to the recordings and discussed to develop joint feedback for the resident. The panel discussions were recorded and served as the data source for this study. We analyzed the data following the grounded theory approach using open coding and axial coding. The study setting was at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, a 5-year general surgery residency program in Springfield, Illinois. Thirteen residents out of 19 in the program participated by virtue of having submitted recordings of a patient care consult presentation via phone. Evaluation panels consisted of general surgery academic and community faculty, as well as senior residents. Several criteria for effective oral presentations emerged that have rarely been discussed in prior literature. Themes included: (1) The strategic opening is critical as it "sets the stage" and frames how the attending will listen. Situational factors, such as consideration of time of the day and urgency, should be accounted for in the opening. (2) A deductive structure defines the relevance of the presented information. Clinical judgement should precede supporting evidence. Attending physicians perceive important information as unnecessary if provided outside of this framework. (3) Established trust between a resident and a surgeon determines the level of detail expected of the presenting resident. With increasing trust, surgeons expect residents to present fewer details; if too much detail is included, the presentation may be assessed as ineffective. (4) Surgical descriptions are appreciated for their value in promoting the attending's visualization or mental picture of the patient condition. (5) Oral emphasis using voice tone and pace can be helpful for capturing attending attention. These findings can be utilized to improve the current training program and assessment rubrics toward contextualized work-based assessment practices in surgery. Oral patient presentation skills are neither static nor universal, but fluid and reflexive, based on trust, and situational factors.

Online Peer Review of Oral Presentations

Peer review has been promoted for decades in order to engage students in the assessment process which then leads to better learning outcomes. This teaching pedagogy is relatively innovative in the Hong Kong language classroom because English as a Second Language (ESL) students are not aware of their responsibility in the language learning process and they think that all assessment-related tasks are the teachers’ sole responsibility. The focus on the language system also hinders the importance of skills. Engaging students in the assessment process is challenging. In this Innovations in Practice article, the integration and implementation of online peer review of oral presentations into an undergraduate English Literature curriculum will be presented. The aim of the integration is to bridge the gap between tertiary education and the workplace, equipping students with better oral presentation skills. The two-staged setting could encourage learners to reflect on their performance and bring the feedback forward to the next assessment. Being a reviewer and reviewee provided them with opportunities to learn from the enhanced number of exemplars and peer feedback. They could also realize the discrepancies between their own and their classmates’ performances. Such realization allowed them to better understand the assessment requirements and the required skills, and then develop their own personalized plans for improvement before the actual assessment. As a result, they could learn and improve throughout the semester, both inside and outside the classroom. Involving learners in the assessment process and enhancing their assessment literacy seemed to counter-balance the dominance of content-based, summative assessment in the ESL context.

Introducing a Responsive Multimodal Oral Presentation Pedagogy: Integrating TED Videos with Web 2.0, Collaborative Learning and Teacher Feedback

This article introduces a classroom innovation, which was developed based on the principles of multiliteracies and scaffolding to enhance the mastery of multimodal skills of oral presentations among tertiary English as Second Language (ESL) students. The innovation, named the Responsive Multimodal Oral Presentation Pedagogy (RMO2P), was designed to systematically scaffold learning through the integration of TED (Technology, Education and Design) videos with Web 2.0, collaborative learning and teacher feedback. RMO2P aims to disrupt conventional ways of teaching by transforming the prevailing passiveness among ESL students during classroom learning into active engagement. This article explicates the rationale underpinning the responsive pedagogy and describes the five learning phases, which were developed based on the pedagogical principles and students’ learning needs, and complemented the designated textbook. Classroom data revealed enhanced conceptual knowledge, engaged interests and improved oral presentation skills among the students after one semester of implementation. Hence, the findings affirm the potential of RMO2P as an innovation that can be adopted or adapted for the teaching of oral presentation skills in similar ESL contexts.

Analyzing Students’ Voice of Using Semantic Mapping Technique in Oral Presentation Class

Oral presentation skill is one of the crucial skills which should be possessed by students in higher education. Students are expected to be able to express their ideas and show their understanding of the subject matter, either in verbal or non-verbal communication. Semantic mapping is a strategy which can be used to manage ideas in delivering topics of oral presentation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore what students perceive the use of semantic mapping in their oral presentation class. Thirty students were involved in this study. They joined 800 minutes of Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL) subject. They should read and report what they have read orally through group presentations. Their oral presentation skills were assessed based on four aspects: quality of information and organization, quality of non-verbal communication, visual tools, appropriate use of terminology, as well as precision and details in the document produced. At the end of the course, it was revealed that the use of semantic mapping could help students in giving an effective oral presentation. It can improve students' performance in oral presentation project by enhancing the quality of presentation criteria aforementioned above. The result of the questionnaire also revealed that students positively perceive the use of semantic mapping when giving an oral presentation. They claim that the use of semantic mapping is beneficial for them for giving an effective oral presentation.
 Keywords: oral presentation, semantic mapping, students’ perception, TEYL

A partnership to build scientific capacity of Rwanda's future conservationists: The Memoirs Program.

The future of primates depends on conservationists in primate range countries having the education and opportunities needed to facilitate conservation efforts. However, most primates are found in countries where conservation is underfunded. Rwanda is home to 14 primate species, with three being listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Their remaining native habitats are scarce, highly fragmented, and surrounded by high human densities. Lacking education opportunities and the loss of qualified individuals following decades of political instability created a need for well-trained conservationists to tackle conservation challenges in Rwanda. The Memoirs Program, a science capacity-building partnership between Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund (DFGF), University of Rwanda (UR), the Rwanda Development Board, and Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, aims to train the next generation of Rwandan conservationists. Annually, the Memoirs Program provides 10-12 top students from the UR Conservation Biology undergraduate program the opportunity to conduct senior research projects (Memoirs) at DFGF addressing conservation issues in and around Rwanda's protected areas. Students receive one-on-one supervision by DFGF scientists and affiliates to supplement UR mentorship, along with targeted teaching modules that reinforce and complement UR curricula. In continuation of the Memoirs Program, participants are offered professional development, employment opportunities, and support to publish their research in peer-reviewed journals. Since inception of the Program in 2003, 123 students have participated with 83% being employed or pursuing higher education degrees in conservation-related fields in Rwanda and the region. Pre- and post-training comparison of oral presentation skills, one of the teaching modules, involving 22 students demonstrated increased post-training performance. The Memoirs Program represents an effective partnership between the government, an international conservation non-governmental organization, and a public higher-learning institution in a developing country to support high-performing students to become tomorrow's conservation leaders. This model could be replicated within Rwanda and in other regions of the world.

The added benefit of an extra practice session in virtual reality on the development of presentation skills: A randomized control trial

AbstractDeveloping oral presentation skills is an essential objective of higher education. While previous research emphasized the importance of practice for developing oral presentation skills (OPS), it remains unclear what the optimal amount of practice is. This experimental field study examined the added benefit of an extra practice session in virtual reality (VR) on the progression of 35 graduate students in OPS, using a pre‐test post‐test design. In addition, the mediating effect of public speaking anxiety (PSA) was examined and the relation between PSA, preparation practices, perceived utility of VR and OPS was explored. Questionnaires and performance assessments were used in data collection. Results showed that participants gained benefits from practicing a third time before a virtual audience. Both anxious and non‐anxious participants progressed similarly on presentation skills and experienced the VR intervention comparably. However, the optimal number of practice presentations remains unclear and should be further investigated.

Controlled evaluation of a multimodal system to improve oral presentation skills in a real learning setting

AbstractDeveloping oral presentation skills requires both practice and expert feedback. Several systems have been developed during the last 20 years to provide ample practice opportunities and automated feedback for novice presenters. However, a comprehensive literature review discovered that none of those systems have been adequately evaluated in real learning settings. This work is the first randomised controlled evaluation of the impact that one of these systems has in developing oral presentation skills during a real semester‐long learning activity with 180 students. The main findings are that (1) the development of different dimensions of the oral presentations are not affected equally by the automated feedback and (2) there is a small but statistically significant effect of the use of the tool when a subsequent presentation is evaluated by a human expert.