Understanding Speech Anxiety: A Rhetorical Analysis, Original Research Study, and Assessment Insight
Date of Award
5-5-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Psychology
First Reader
Dr. Barbara Pemberton
Second Reader
Dr. Jeanette Braswell
Third Reader
Dr. Elizabeth Green
Abstract
This thesis serves as a combination of a literature review, on-campus research, and a summary of the most up-to-date research concluding a section on the implications of this thesis and future applications in addition to an analysis on assessment for speech anxiety. First, we will review, in a broad perspective, past research pertaining to anxiety assessment and speech anxiety. This includes summarizing studies, books, and articles all involved in the analysis of speech anxiety. Second, I'll discuss the research conducted on campus. This will go in depth on the format of research, participant pool, results, analysis, and statistical methods used to produce the results. Third, we will discuss the research obtained through the 2024 APA conventions on Emotion and Assessment and how that relates to this analysis. How the APA convention and current research approaches this topic or similar topics and their implications. Finally, we will take a broader perspective, one that looks at all the previous sections and summarize them in a concise way. This will give the thesis an overall purpose, one that produces future positive implications about the overarching knowledge of speech-giving capabilities and anxieties.
The thesis was decided to be divided in such a way as to provide all different kinds of angles an understanding of speech anxiety. With past research analysis, we can better understand through history what was known both at its beginning concept and better understand its evolution to where it is today. Including the on-campus research, the analysis incorporates first-hand knowledge and critique on literature and their research methods. Then, using the knowledge gained from the APA convention concerning emotion, we can obtain present knowledge on other researchers and their findings about the subject. Though some of their research may not be on the exact topic of speech anxiety, their research branches off anxiety, showing the continued interest of fellow psychologists in the subject. The conclusion makes connections between the past, present, on-campus research, and the future implications of all. It also will tie together an overall summary and concise overview of speech anxiety itself. With this overarching understanding of the topic of speech anxiety, psychologists, researchers, and even the greater public, can understand the best assessments and therefore better people's speech-giving capabilities.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Pallen, Cody, "Understanding Speech Anxiety: A Rhetorical Analysis, Original Research Study, and Assessment Insight" (2025). Honors Theses. 1006.
https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/honors_theses/1006
