| Project/Area Number |
23K12231
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 02100:Foreign language education-related
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| Research Institution | Hiroshima University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2023-04-01 – 2026-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,990,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥690,000)
Fiscal Year 2025: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2024: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥390,000 (Direct Cost: ¥300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥90,000)
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| Keywords | public speaking anxiety / language communication / NIRS / VR / speaking anxiety / brain function |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
VR could be the most viable option to provide authentic environments and stimuli that may help learners to tackle their speaking anxiety. However, to what extent the VR implementation could have a positive effect on the learners in improving communication skills are not yet clear. Speaking anxiety will be classified into 4 components with the aim to explore the speaking anxiety causes. Based on that, I aim to develop suitable VR content to improve learners’ communication skills against anxiety causes. The effectiveness of VR in improving learners’ communication skills will be verified.
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In FY2023, the primary objective is to determine the underlying cause of public speaking anxiety (PSA) within the educational setting. We used the questionnaire to find the correlation between the four components of speaking anxiety (communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, general anxiety of English language, test anxiety) based on demographic factors such as gender, learners’ educational background, and other details. First, we utilized the questionnaire and surveyed it in several stages, to improve its quality and precision, regarding examining the public speaking anxiety factors of the four components. In detail, we proceed with the analysis to investigate which factor from the questionnaire affects each component of the PSA.
Based on the conducted survey, our findings emphasized that communication apprehension is the main component influencing speaking anxiety the most. In addition, most of the participants mentioned that the size of the audience also affects their public speaking performance. For the next, we are planning to implement a finalized version of the questionnaire, so that the results from the correlation analysis of the speaking anxiety could be utilized as guidance for the VR treatment content development. Furthermore, the NIRS will be incorporated for objective assessments of PSA. Thus, the research could offer educators valuable insights in applying a suitable curriculum for the learners specifically.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
4: Progress in research has been delayed.
Reason
We conducted the questionnaire in stages to improve its quality for a better finding and understanding of the public speaking anxiety components and factors. which is the key idea of this research. However, there has been a delay in progress as the planned effort could not be secured, before we could proceed with the VR content development for the public speaking anxiety treatment. In the future, efforts will be made accordingly to proceed with the plan scheduled and we plan to collect the data as much as possible for better findings. In fact, out of four components, we decided to focus on only one component that mainly affects public speaking anxiety.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
According to the plan, we will proceed with the VR content development and pre-assessment analysis for empirical experiments. We will construct the VR contents for further investigation to be used as class materials based on the analysis results. The VR contents are expected to give anxiety treatment to improve communication skills. In detail, the situations for the VR content can vary from giving a speech based on the number of audiences or any other factors depending on the speaking anxiety factors. The constructed VR contents will be used as the stimulus for the experiment. Here, a pre-experiment will be conducted to assess the feasibility of the VR implementation in the classroom.
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