Speech Center Support Services, the Basic Course, and Oral Communication Assessment

This study examines the role a speech center plays in supporting university-wide oral communication assessment. Specifically, this study queries student usage of speech center support services and perceived changes in public speaking anxiety, public speaking confidence, and public speaking skills. The findings indicate that students who report more visits to the speech center also perceive that using the speech center helped reduce their speech anxiety and increase their confidence in public speaking. In addition, those who report it “helpful” to self-evaluate recordings of their in-class speeches also report a greater reduction in speech anxiety, a greater increase in confidence, and a greater increase in public speaking skills over the course of the semester. Implications for basic course assessment programs and speech centers are discussed

Assessment of E-textbook Usage in a Large Public Speaking Program

This study examined student usage of an e-textbook in a large multi-section basic pubic speaking course that fulfills the oral communication general education requirement at a large state university in the Midwest. The results collected from students surveys (n=598) indicated that they are not yet using e-textbooks across other university classes, they prefer printed textbooks to e-textbooks, they perceive advantages of e-textbooks to be cost, weight, ability to quickly find topics and conveniences, while they perceive advantages of printed textbooks to be the ability to highlight and take notes, ease of reading, and keeping the printed text-book for future reference. When it comes to e-textbook reading, they prefer computers to smaller computing devices like iPads, iPods, cellular phones or other electronic readers, and only 18% of the students at this public university reported access to an electronic tablet and only 16% had access to an e-reader. Students preferred using an e-textbook to a printed textbook when they had prior experience reading an e-book. In general, students report spending less than one hour per week reading the course e-textbook