An Investigation of Anxiety Factors During English Oral Presentation Skills of Engineering Undergraduates in Pakistan

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the factors affecting oral presentation skills of undergraduate-learners of English that influence their academic performance which potentially can affect professional career. The study has used quantitative instrument as questionnaire partially adopted from McCroskey (1982) for data collection among 100 undergraduate-participants on factors affecting oral communication skills at one Public Sector University. Purposive sampling method was used since participants were selected on specific criteria of only first year engineering undergraduates. The data were analysed through SPSS, v.20 for obtaining percentage, mean, median, standard deviation, and standard error of mean to be measured. The findings revealed that oral presentation skills as the most problematic for engineering undergraduates. The results also revealed that the several factors affected engineering undergraduates' oral presentations.It has been noticed the oral presentation skills in English are essential in present day academic career as well as for professional success. Effective communicators know how it is crucial to possess effective communication skills. Graduates require an ever-increasing variety of skills to maintain relevance with global atmosphere of the new millennium (Riemer, 2007) and ever-growing need for good communication skills in English has emerged on high demand around the world (Richards, 2006). 21st century demands the graduates to acquire effective oral presentation skills. Research studies in a recent decade have indicated that 60% graduates spend their time in communication with people (Trevelayan & Tilli, 2008). Oral presentation skills in English are essential for undergraduates in this modern means of communication era.

Oral Presentation Anxiety Among Undergraduate Malaysian Chinese Students in a Private University

“…Overall, the reviewed studies (Anggita & Suwartono, 2020;Abassi et al, 2019;Soomro et al, 2019;Marx, 2019;Sadiq, 2017;Hwa & Peck, 2017;Tati et al, 2016;Kamaruddin & Abdullah, 2015) that have utilized Horwitz et al's Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) reported a similar pattern for the causes of presentation anxiety which are mainly due to the fear of negative evaluation from others, lack of language competence, and communication apprehension among students.…”

“…1, June 2022 their presentation anxiety in class. In a similar qualitative study (Soomro et al, 2019) conducted on 100 undergraduate engineering students in Pakistan by investigating the factors that affect their presentation performances through an adopted five-point-likert-scale questionnaire (McCroskey, 1982) regarding oral anxiety. They found out that most of the participants experienced low motivation, nervousness, and low confidence when doing presentations in class.…”

Communication apprehension and self-perceived communication competence: a study of undergraduate students in their final year

“…The findings of these studies have attributed students' CA to a lack of authentic and straightforward sources and a target language that is not their native language and constructs each word differently (Huashan, 2019), inadequate linguistic competencies (Mohamed and Asmawi, 2018), struggle with group communication (Nugroho, 2022) and lack of paralinguistic prerequisites as well as fear that as public speakers, they will attract both attention and criticism (Riaz and Riaz, 2022). CA can occasionally cause brief brain blocks during presentations, causing students to forget or lose sight of ideas (Soomro et al, 2019), which hinders them from speaking fluently in FL settings. As a result, Belaman et al (2022) contended that adopting oral communicative strategies can help students overcome their fear of public speaking.…”

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