Presenter: Tristan Phillips – Business Administration
Co-Presenter(s): Claire Putnam
Faculty Mentor(s): Emily Simnitt
Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—Communication: How and Why
When asked about what skills are most important for communication, often reading and writing come to mind. It’s not often in our education that we find public speaking to be a skill that is emphasized as important. As a result, people don’t often put time and energy into becoming better public speakers and are afraid of it when they are required to give presentations. In this study, we examine how students feel about public speaking. How do students who have received practice or training feel compared to those who don’t have that training? The purpose of this study is to see how we can best tailor our public speaking workshops to the students. We want to get an idea of the perception people have of public speaking. More importantly, what qualities do people see as “good public speaking skills” and what does this tell us about public speaking literacy? We hope this data can be used by the university to allocate more resources toward public speaking education.