PRAXIS - Art as a Means of Exploring Public Speaking Anxiety: One Communication Center’s Expressions - Rationale

Oct 15, 2026

Explores how public speaking anxiety (PSA) affects student speakers and why higher-education communication centers are positioned to support managing it. Grounded in prior research on fear, communication apprehension, and fear of public speaking, the text argues that conventional course strategies do not work for everyone. It then details how peer consultations create safe, judgment-free dialogue and how uncertainty reduction and guidance may help. The discussion motivates using expressive art as an adjunct approach to open possibilities for reflection, perspective, and anxiety management.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Rationale

Origins of Public Speaking Fear Research

Communication Centers as Supportive Learning Spaces

Definitions: CA, FOPS, and PSA

Art-Based Approaches to Managing Anxiety

PRAXIS Art as a Means of Exploring Public Speaking Anxiety: One Communication Center’s Expressions Kimberly M. Cuny University of North Carolina, Greensboro Rationale Dwyer and Davidson’s 2012 research traces the genesis and transformation of the story behind myths about Americans’ greatest fears. The story starts with research, publicized in a 1973 London Times article, which essentially unmasked an almost mythic tale about public speaking being Americans’worst fear. Dwyer and Davidson were able to replicate the original study after altering the questions to focus on college students facing the start of a public speaking course. They found that “students selected death as their top fear most often, followed by public speaking, and then financial problems. So, is public speaking not really the number one fear? It is the most common fear, selected by students more often than other fears. However, it is not the top rated fear, death is”(Dwyer & Davidson, 2012, p. 107) . Not surprisingly, public speaking college faculty experience the effects of this speaking fear when student-speakers give presentations in their classes. This is what serves as our motivation to look further into the role communication centers might have in supporting the management of public speaking anxiety (PSA). Students, faculty, and staff working at communication centers are well positioned to aid speakers with PSA through critical intervention (Yook, 2006) . Public speaking and basic communication course textbooks already cover the stage fright associated with public speaking in ways that suggest strategies for success. For example, O’Hair, Rubinstein, and Stewart (2013) suggest that, for student speakers to manage their anxiety, they can try modifying thoughts and attitudes, visualizing success, and relaxing. Unlike most introduction to communication textbooks, Schwartzman (2010) cites more research studies when he lists strategies for success. His list includes harnessing nervousness, habituation and immersion, cognitive restructuring, systematic desensitization in incremental approaches, positive visualization, and controlling your presentation conditions. While nearly all of the strategies listed in both books are rooted in research findings, not every technique for managing or reducing PSA will work for everyone. Communication centers in higher education are the learning spaces where studentspeakers seek support as they work on oral communication class assignments. In these centers, we face PSA issues regularly. Communication centers function as safe and judgment free learning spaces where speakers enter into dialogue with a peer educator who has been trained to facilitate center specific forms of critical pedagogy. Peer educators at communication centers never co-create speakers’work products but rather they offer guidance and feedback, and at some centers they also offer supplemental instruction. At the start of a session, speakers and consultants first work to identify goals for the peer-to-peer consultation. Together the two discuss the assignment, look at or listen to the speaker’s work product, or talk about any other related issue that the speaker brings up. At the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, as we engaged in meaningful dialogue with speakers about the multimodality of their oral communication acts, we speculated about the anxiety that speakers bring with them into our consultation rooms: “As one would expect there is public speaking anxiety, especially if the speaker is going to stand up and practice their [sic] speech with us. With help from our consultants that were recruited from the pool of speakers we worked with previously, we also identified the uncertainty of what is to come during the pending consultation as a source of anxiety”(Zakia & Cuny, 2013) . After making stress reducing changes to the experiences speakers would have in our lobby and in consultations, including adapting positive affirm

FAQs

为什么公共演讲焦虑（PSA）需要被深入研究？

研究指出公共演讲焦虑会在课堂展示中持续影响学生表达者，而传统教材中的策略并非对所有人都有效，因此需要进一步探讨支持机制与干预方式。

交流中心如何在同伴咨询中帮助缓解PSA？

咨询起点是共同识别目标，讨论作业并查看或聆听发言者的作品，提供指导与反馈。通过安全、无评判的对话环境，帮助发言者减少对不确定性的担忧。

文中提到的CA、FOPS和PSA分别指什么？

CA是个体在真实或预期交流中的恐惧或焦虑水平；FOPS被视为一种社交恐惧；PSA同样属于社交恐惧，强调观众的不满意评价威胁，并伴随生理唤起与消极自我聚焦等反应。

为何作者认为艺术的表达能力可能对管理PSA有帮助？

作者指出尚少研究将艺术的创造性与表达用于帮助受影响者，并联系心理治疗与教育中的既有理解：艺术能促进情绪沟通、提供反思空间，并作为其他方法的辅助手段来缓解焦虑问题。

Oct 15, 2026

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