Public Speaking Anxiety among College Students at St. Paul University Surigao

: Public speaking is the act of making speeches in public or the art of effective oral communication with an audience. Fear of public speaking is common among students and the general population. The National Institute of Mental Health Report stated that public speaking anxiety is considered a social anxiety disorder (Brewer, 2001). This research aimed to find out the public speaking anxiety among college students of St. Paul University Surigao. It sought to answer the participants' anxiety levels as Trait Anxiety, Context Anxiety, Audience Anxiety, and Situation Anxiety. The data were tested for the significant difference when grouped according to their profile. The researchers utilized the quantitative descriptive survey design using a researcher-made questionnaire that was subjected for validity and reliability checking and was administered to 81 education students. The findings revealed that students experienced very high Audience Anxiety while only high Trait, Context and Situation Anxieties. Furthermore, the findings found no significant difference in the participants’ level of anxiety when grouped according to profile. This means that anxiety level remains the same regardless of age, sex, and year level. Hence, it is recommended that public speaking should be offered as a subject to all degree programs at the tertiary level especially for teacher education programs. Also, the school administrators should encourage more public speaking activities in and out of the school where students would participate in such public speaking events to hone skills, thus, minimizing public speaking anxieties.


INTRODUCTION
Public speaking as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary is the activity of speaking on a subject to a group of people.It is considered an essential tool in the various fields of endeavor that will be carried on in our inexorable march toward a better life (Gupit, 2011).Gregory (2005) stressed that college students found public speaking the most valuable knowledge in college.Students cited important reasons such as: 1-learning how to speak to a public audience; 2-learning skills that apply to one-on-one communication; 3-developing efficient oral communication needed in the job market; 4-learning experience gained; 5-developing self-confidence, and 6-improving self-esteem among students.
Many people are terrified of public speaking.Sellnow and Verderber ( 2011) described the open speech as a formal facilitated introduction between a speaker and a community of onlookers, which is one of the communication modes of humans; therefore, learning to be an excellent open speaker would also help to become more convincing in other communication environments and a step for certainty, speaking fashion, pitch, and style.Because most people are not born public speakers, they need to be trained to improve their speaking skills.Raja (2017) in her study on "Anxiety Level in Students of Public Speaking: Causes and Remedies" revealed that lack of confidence was the most common reason among many students experiencing fright of public speaking rationalizing that meek nature and feeling distressed and uncomfortable while speaking in front of others.
Most research studies showed that students and even professionals experienced public speaking anxiety, however, this can be treated and improved by proper training.Teachers in the school play a very essential role in providing support, especially in the building up of self-trust, and self-confidence, enhancing self-esteem, and the feeling of competence.These are the essential components in defining self-concept during the training process to help them overcome public speaking anxiety.Akin

METHODOLOGY
The study utilized the quantitative descriptive survey method using a researcher-made questionnaire to find out the level of public speaking anxiety among college students at St. Paul University Surigao as to Trait Anxiety, Context Anxiety, Audience Anxiety, and Situation Anxiety.The questionnaire was pilot tested and was subjected to validity testing.The paper was further reviewed by the Ethics Review Committee of the University Research Center.
The researchers used the purposive random sampling technique in the gathering of the data.Only the student participants from the College of Education of St. Paul University Surigao was considered.There were eighty-one (81) college of education students who were distributed as follows: First year 14(17.28%),Second year 8 (9.87%), Third Year 49 (60.5%).Informed consent was sought from the prospected participants to manifest their willingness to participate in the study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The data presented in table 1 below showed that audience anxiety was rated the highest.Respondents, in this type of anxiety, manifested fear that the audience might judge if they commit mistakes when delivering a speech.Another highlighted indicator of audience anxiety is that students appearing nervous in front of the audience.While, trait anxiety, context anxiety, and situation anxiety were rated high.Context anxiety highlights one indicator with a very high rating; that students felt anxious when being scolded in front of their classmates.The findings of this study are consistent with a post from a "knowledge, awareness, and self-improvement" site that finds the fear of public speaking occupying the #3 slot among the listed causes as cited in "10 Causes of Speech Anxiety that Create Fear of Public Speaking".In this list, a dread of loneliness and death edges out our social phobia but fear of speaking reliably remains one of the great waking nightmares (Genard, 2019).The findings of the study, as shown in the table above, found no significant difference in the participant's level of anxiety when grouped according to profile.The above findings particularly on sex variable negate the findings of Abdeldaiem, et. al (2020) in their anonymous cross-sectional survey among Egyptian students where it revealed that public speaking anxiety was high among female students but much higher than that among males.However, prevalence of a significant percentage of students (78.8%) reported suffering from public speaking anxiety and about 26% admitted having experienced extreme fear (public speaking phobia) concurred with the results of this present study.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions are drawn: 1.The data showed that respondents' level of anxiety is not significantly influenced by their age, sex, and year level.
Regardless of age, sex, and year level, they were consistent in their respective ratings in all the dimensions; and 2. The college student respondents experienced very high audience anxiety in public speaking which is highlighted by respondents' fear of being judged by the mistakes committed when delivering the speech and likewise appearing nervous in front of the audience, while context anxiety, situation anxiety, and trait anxiety were rated at high levels.Context anxiety likewise highlighted students' feelings of anxiety when being scolded in front of their classmates.
Guided by the findings and conclusions of the study, the following are the recommendations: 1. Public Speaking subject should be offered to all the degree programs at the tertiary level; 2. School Administrators should encourage public speaking activities for all departments and provide support to participating students; 3. Teachers should integrate public speaking activities into their syllabi in the absence of subject offerings in their degree programs; and got apprehension anxiety when being asked to explain in front of my classmates.2.93 0.63 Agree High 4. I got apprehension anxiety when being asked questions about a topic I am uncertain of.Verbal Interpretation (VI)Strongly Disagree (SD) Disagree (D) Agree (A) Strongly Agree (SA); Level of Anxiety (LOA) Very High (VH), High (H), Low (L), Very Low (VL)

Table 1 -
The Mean and the Standard deviation showing the Level of Public Speaking Anxiety among College Students As to Trait Anxiety, Context Anxiety, Audience Anxiety, and Situation Anxiety

Table 2 .
The significant difference in the participant's level of anxiety when grouped according to profile