Let's talk posters: a novel role-playing activity to prepare undergraduate researchers for poster presentations

Calls to increase undergraduate involvement in research have led to a significant increase in student participation via course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). These CUREs provide students an authentic research experience, which often involves dissemination of research by public speaking. For instance, the First-year Research Immersion (FRI) program at Binghamton University is a three-semester CURE sequence that prepares students for scientific research and effective communication of their findings. After one semester of research, students from the FRI program are tasked with presenting their research to hundreds of faculty members, staff, friends, and family at the annual FRI poster session. However, our students, and undergraduates in general, report high anxiety and fear around public speaking such as this. To better prepare our students for public speaking at a research poster session, we developed a workshop that includes a novel role-play activity to mimic a fast-paced poster session or conference in order to address students' fears and increase confidence levels. The role-play activity gives students iterative practice such that they are prepared for the realities of a poster session including variation of poster attendees. During the activity, students switch roles between presenter and audience member. In the role of an audience member, students are given Pokèmon-like role-playing cards that explain the traits and abilities of various types of poster-goers that students might come across (faculty in and out of discipline, staff, family, friends, etc.). Students improvise and enact their card-assigned role as they engage with their classmates who are practicing their poster presentations. To assess student outcomes, students were given three surveys: pre-activity, post-activity, and post-poster presentation. Immediately following the activity, 64% of students reported the highest level of confidence, and following the poster session, 93% of students reported extreme confidence in their poster presentation abilities. These data show that this role-play activity can help address student confidence and better prepare students to communicate their research.

Fear of public speaking: the effects of a communicational improvement training on physiological parameters and the perception of communication

Presentations to audiences are often seen as challenging by university students, causing physiological reactivity on cortisol levels and heart rate, for example. Many students perceive that they have difficulties expressing themselves or do not consider themselves to be good communicators. With the thought that efficient communication is able to bring well-being and more confidence, it is understood that a communication skills training could mitigate adverse effects on the body during public speaking. This study aimed to verify whether a communicational improvement training can improve physiological parameters and perception when speaking in public among university students. This was a prospective, blinded, controlled, and randomized trial. Students from colleges and universities were recruited for this study. Invitations were either in person or via social networks and/or e-mail. There were 39 university students who completed the tasks, ages between 18 and 30. There were two groups: the intervention group (IG) and control group (CG). The intervention group participated in a communicational improvement program for six weeks to work on breathing, articulation, speech rhythm, pneumophonoarticulatory coordination, expressiveness and non-verbal communication. Data of heart rate measures, salivary cortisol analysis, self-perception of public speaking, and presentation ratings were collected. The intervention group presented with lower heart rates and cortisol levels, better presentation ratings, and higher self-perception of public speaking than the control group after participating in the communication improvement training. In this study it was possible to verify the efficiency of a communicational improvement training, being able to improve cortisol levels, heart rate, and perception when speaking in public in university students. Based on the results presented, new studies are suggested: (a) measuring the individual effect of the workshops demonstrated here and (b) comparing this type of intervention with other types of treatment used in the health area (medication, psychotherapeutic, holistic, etc.).

The efficacy of remote video-based behavioral skills training and awareness training on public speaking performance

This study evaluated the efficacy of (a) remote video-based behavioral skills training (BST) with added speech outlines on teaching public speaking behaviors and (b) remote video-based awareness training (AT) on speech-disfluency rates. A multiple-baseline design across speech behaviors was used to evaluate the training. Remote video-based BST and AT were effective at teaching public speaking behaviors and reducing speech disfluencies, respectively, for both participants. In addition, performance generalized to increased audience size. Although expert ratings of perceived public speaking effectiveness improved following BST, the ratings did not improve and some worsened following AT. Both participants reported satisfaction with video-based BST and AT. One participant reported greater comfort, confidence, overall ability, and less anxiety as a public speaker following BST. Both participants reported greater improvements in those categories following AT. Our results suggest that public speaking behaviors can be taught using remote video-based BST and speech disfluencies can be reduced using remote video-based AT.

Expanding Applicability of Presentations at Public Health Conferences

As public health practitioners and program evaluators for a state health department, we look forward to public health conferences for the opportunity to hear from leaders in the field and inform our own practice. While we feel that most presentations describe the work and why it matters, many of us leave sessions thinking, "Now what?" In other words, how do we apply what we learned to public health practice? As American Public Health Association (APHA) looks to celebrate its 150th year in 2022, now is an ideal time to focus on expanding the impact of our work. We offer several suggestions for how conference presenters can make their work more applicable to public health practitioners. We ground our recommendations in John Driscoll's reflective model for health care practitioners. This framework guides the audience through three questions designed to move from a description of what happened ("what?") to the potential significance of their findings ("so what?") and finally to the actions we can take as a result ("now what?"). These strategies are meant to help presenters describe processes and implications in addition to outcomes and theory. We hope that public health professionals can continue to look to the APHA Annual Meeting and other public health conferences as not only sources of innovative research but also as forums for practitioners to share the practical applications of their work.

[Public speaking in the service of the IPA profession]

Public speaking is fashionable. Yet, as a discipline of performers with its own technique, it has only one purpose: to serve authors in order to enrich the world with their ideas. Advanced practice nurses could also use it to develop their ability to communicate their ideas.

We, um, have, like, a problem: excessive use of fillers in scientific speech

A filler is any word or sound that interpolates (i.e., is inserted into) the main message of a speaker. Common fillers include "um", "ah," "like," "so," and "you know?" among others. Excessive use of fillers in scientific presentations can reduce the credibility of the speaker as well as impair the comprehension of the speaker's message by the audience. Primary causes of fillers include nervousness/speaking too quickly, inadequate preparation time, and infrequently used words that are difficult for the speaker to remember while presenting. Recommendations for reducing the use of fillers include self-awareness of the problem, reinforcing feedback, and active intervention to render pauses silent (instead of verbal) by "chunking" content, increasing preparation time, and slowing presentation pace. Excessive use of fillers is an obstacle to becoming an effective public speaker, and therefore, efforts to reduce filler use should be a goal of professional development.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Although many articles exist on the use of filler words during public speaking, to our knowledge this is the first comprehensive discussion of the issue in the context of scientific presentations and speech in biomedical research. This Personal View discusses the problem of excessive filler use, the underlying causes, and tips for reducing fillers based on a combination of available literature and personal advice from a laboratory with nearly 40 years of experience in mentoring.

Public speaking disfluencies: A review of habit reversal training and research

From 2016 to 2022, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis published 7 studies that evaluated the effects of habit reversal training on speech disfluencies (filled pauses) during public speaking. This review summarizes the participants, dependent variables, procedures, experimental design, and outcomes from this research including practice implications and suggested areas of inquiry.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Shyness Affected by Facial Attractiveness

Previous neurological studies of shyness have focused on the hemispheric asymmetry of alpha spectral power. To the best of our knowledge, few studies have focused on the interaction between different frequencies bands in the brain of shyness. Additionally, shy individuals are even shyer when confronted with a group of people they consider superior to them. This study aimed to reveal the neural basis of shy individuals using the delta-beta correlation. Further, it aimed to investigate the effect of evaluators’ facial attractiveness on the delta-beta correlation of shyness during the speech anticipation phase. We recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) activity of 94 participants during rest and anticipation of the public speaking phase. Moreover, during the speech anticipation phase, participants were presented with high or low facial attractiveness. The results showed that, as predicted, the delta-beta correlation in the frontal region was more robust for high shyness than for low shyness during the speech anticipation phase. However, no significant differences were observed in the delta-beta correlation during the baseline phase. Further exploration found that the delta-beta correlation was more robust for high facial attractiveness than low facial attractiveness in the high shyness group. However, no significant difference was found in the low-shyness group. This study suggests that a stronger delta-beta correlation might be the neural basis for shy individuals. Moreover, high facial attractiveness might enhance the delta-beta correlation of high shyness in anticipation of public speaking.

Social External Stimuli During Virtual Reality Exposure to Public Speaking in Social Anxiety

Background: Enhanced self-focused attention plays a central role in the maintenance and treatment of Social Anxiety and is targeted in contemporary cognitive behavioral therapy. Actual developments use Virtual Reality (VR) for behavioral training. However, no VR attention training combining exposure to public speaking with shifting attention from self-focus to external focus has been investigated, and no experimental evidence exists on different kinds of external cues as targets of attention. Therefore, we investigated the effects of an attention training during public speaking in VR and examined differential effects of an external focus on nonsocial vs. social stimuli. Methods: In this randomized controlled study, highly socially anxious participants were instructed to focus on either objects or the audience within a virtual speech task. We assessed the pre-post effects on affective reactions, self-perception, and attentional processes during public speaking as well as general Social Anxiety using subjective, physiological, and eye-tracking measures. Repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were calculated to detect changes from pretest to posttest over both groups, and time × group interaction effects. Results: Within the analysis sample (n = 41), anxiety during public speaking and fear of negative evaluation significantly decreased, with no significant differences between groups. No significant time effect, but a significant time × group effect, was found for the looking time proportion on the audience members' heads. Follow-up tests confirmed a significant increase in the social-focus group and a significant decrease in the nonsocial-focus group. For all other variables, except external focus and fear of public speaking, significant improvements were found over both groups. Further significant time x group effects were found for positive affect during public speaking, with a significant increase in the social focus, and no significant change in the nonsocial-focus group. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that attention training to reduce self-focus can be successfully conducted in VR. Both training versions showed positive short-term effects in the highly socially anxious, with particular advantages of an external social focus concerning eye contact to the audience and positive affect. Further research should investigate whether social focus is even more advantageous long term and if reinterpretations of dysfunctional beliefs could be achieved by not avoiding social cues.

Decreasing nervous habits during public speaking: A component analysis of awareness training

Awareness training can produce decreases in nervous habits during public speaking. A systematic replication of Montes et al. (2020) was conducted to evaluate the independent and additive effects of awareness training components (i.e., response description, response detection) on speech disfluencies during public speaking. We extended prior research by evaluating response description alone, delivering the intervention virtually, using novel videos and speech topics during training, and measuring collateral effects on untargeted responses and speech rate. Response description was sufficient at reducing speech disfluencies for 4 of 9 participants. Response detection (video training) was necessary for 2 participants, and the subsequent addition of response detection (in-vivo training) was necessary for 3 participants. Reductions were maintained during follow-up and generalization probes for most participants. Collateral effects of awareness training components were idiosyncratic. A post-hoc analysis revealed that response description, when effective as a stand-alone intervention, may be more efficient than the full awareness training package.

Using brief habit reversal and an interdependent group contingency to reduce public-speaking speech disfluencies

This study replicated and extended previous research on the effectiveness of brief habit reversal, consisting of awareness training and competing response training (silent pause) in reducing the rate of speech disfluencies during public speaking. Nine university students, divided into 3 groups, delivered short speeches on a novel topic. Brief habit reversal combined with an interdependent group contingency resulted in a meaningful reduction in speech disfluencies with only 1 group requiring booster sessions. Relative to baseline, competing responses increased for all participants but only remained high for 1 participant following training. Reductions in speech disfluencies maintained during follow-up when participants presented in front of a small audience.

Coaching educators: Impact of a novel national faculty development program for didactic presentation skills

BACKGROUND

Didactic lectures remain common in medical education. Many faculty physicians do not receive formal training on public presentations or leading instructional sessions. Coaching has emerged in medical education with the potential to positively impact skills. We sought to evaluate a novel, national faculty peer-coaching program created to improve lecture presentation skills and foster career development.

METHODS

This was a mixed-methods study of participant and faculty perceptions after completing the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine Academy Coaching Program. Participants completed an online evaluative survey consisting of multiple choice and Likert-type items. Program coaches participated in semistructured interviews. Descriptive statistics were reported for survey data. Thematic qualitative analysis by two independent reviewers was performed on interview data.

RESULTS

During 2012 to 2017, a total of 30 participants and 11 coaches from 37 residency programs across the United States engaged in the program. Twenty-four (80%) participants completed the survey. Eight (73%) coaches participated in semistructured interviews. Data were collected between October and December 2018. The mean ± SD numbers of national presentations participants had given before and after the coaching program were 6.92 ± 7.68 and 16.42 ± 15.43, respectively. Since their coaching, most participants (87.5%) have been invited to give a lecture at another institution. Many participants felt that the program improved their lecture evaluations, public speaking, ability to engage an audience, and professional development. Almost all (92%) would recommend the program to a colleague. The coaches perceived multiple benefits including improved skills, self-reflection, networking, career advancement, and personal fulfillment. Suggestions for improvement included improved administrative processes, more clear expectations, increased marketing, and increased participant and coach engagement.

CONCLUSION

Participants and coaches perceived multiple benefits from this novel, national faculty coaching program. With identification of the success, challenges, and suggestions for improvement, others may benefit as they develop coaching programs in medical education.

Trait and State: Interoceptive Accuracy during Anticipation of Public Speaking in Junior Secondary Shy Students from an Eastern Province of China

This study investigated the interoceptive accuracy (IAc) of shy adolescents during anticipation of public speaking with a 2 × 2 factorial design. Altogether, 637 junior secondary students in an eastern province of China were sampled and screened with the Chinese version of Cheek and Buss shyness scale. The top 27% of students were considered the shy group (n = 30, 16 girls, M_age = 13.03, SD = 0.67), whereas the bottom 27% were labelled the non-shy group (n = 31, 16 girls, M_age = 13.16, SD = 0.86). The two groups of participants estimated their heart rates during specified intervals using a mental tracking paradigm in two conditions (baseline vs. anticipation), while their actual heart rates were simultaneously measured. The results indicated that: (1) the shy adolescents were more accurate in estimating their actual heart rate than non-shy adolescents; and (2) both shy and non-shy adolescents exhibit enhanced IAc in anticipation conditions when compared with baseline conditions. Implications of the higher IAc of shy adolescents and the state feature of IAc are discussed.

Should eloquence be taught as part of the undergraduate medical curriculum?

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. The integration of the humanities into the medical curriculum over the past two decades has been widely adopted in the stream of communication usually within the realms of doctor-patient relationship. However, its integration within medical curriculum is inconsistent, and may only be present as an optional component in certain selected modules. The study of eloquence within medicine has not been described previously, we propose that its inclusion into the medical curricula will increase equality and diversity in medical training. We aim to debate the roles of medical humanities and the integration of eloquence into the medical curriculum. Integration of eloquence into the medical curriculum with the aim of developing written prose and oration could improve our interprofessional communication and bridge the gap for those from a wider social background accessing medicine.

"Bringing the plague": Groundwork for a transformative outreach of psychoanalysis

The authors lay the groundwork for a theory and technique of transformative outreach of psychoanalysis, a process of group building of a shared emotional experience by way of a discourse on issues of psychoanalytic relevance. The subject of interest is the public conference, where the "outreach session" is defined as a situation built on the basis of a well-defined setting, which allows the unfolding of the informative process to the best effect. Being able to grasp the quality of the experience that one is creating, while respecting individual differences, is a specific analytical capacity. To the audience, being able to feel that someone minds how it may experience being there, in that moment, means being able to experience in person the containing and transformative capacity of psychoanalysis. This frame of mind can be maintained much more easily if the speaker shows up without a written speech: "placing a sheet" between him or herself and the audience shields his or her perceptual-receptive capacity, which is necessary to give space to the waking dream activity. As theoretical background, the recent developments of the Bionian perspective proposed by Ogden and Ferro seem the most suitable to root our proposed ideas for good psychoanalytical outreach practices.

Reducing speech disfluencies during public speaking using brief habit reversal

Recent research has evaluated the effects of brief habit reversal, consisting of either awareness training (AT) and competing response training (Mancuso & Miltenberger, 2016), or AT alone (Spieler & Miltenberger, 2017) in reducing speech disfluencies during public speaking. Although both formats of brief habit reversal reduced rates of speech disfluencies, results suggested that teaching a competing response (CR) may produce better outcomes. We aimed to replicate and extend those studies by evaluating the effects of AT and instructing the use of a CR (a silent pause) on rates of speech disfluencies and CRs during public speaking. Following training, all 4 participants demonstrated a reduction of speech disfluencies, and 1 participant demonstrated moderate levels of CRs when giving a speech in front of both a single experimenter and small audience. For 1 participant, generalized effects were demonstrated when presenting in front of a class.

Blunted stress reactivity reveals vulnerability to early life adversity in young adults with a family history of alcoholism

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

People with blunted stress reactivity have poor impulse control and also show increased risk for alcoholism. Exposure to early life adversity (ELA) contributes to blunted reactivity, but individual differences in susceptibility to ELA are not well understood. This study aimed to determine whether exposure to ELA has a greater impact on stress reactivity in young adults with a family history of alcoholism (FH+) compared with young adults with no family history of alcoholism (FH-).

DESIGN

Observational study using linear modeling.

SETTING

Oklahoma, USA.

PARTICIPANTS

Seven hundred and nine young adults (398 females) recruited through community advertisement.

MEASUREMENTS

We obtained heart rates and cortisol levels in subjects while undergoing public speaking and mental arithmetic stress compared with a resting control day (1418 test sessions). ELA was quantified as 0, 1 or > 1 adverse events experienced by age 15 years. FH+ people had one or two parents with an alcohol use disorder, and FH- controls had no such history for two generations.

FINDINGS

Increasing levels of ELA predicted progressive blunting of cortisol and heart rate reactivity for the whole sample (Fs = 4.57 and 4.70, Ps ≤ 0.011), but examination by FH status showed that the effect of ELA was significant only among FH+ (Fs ≥ 3.5, Ps < 0.05) and absent in FH- (Ps > 0.40). This difference in ELA impact was not explained by the cortisol diurnal cycle or subjective evaluation of the stressors.

CONCLUSIONS

People with a family history of alcoholism appear to be vulnerable, in terms of changes to physiological stress response, to the impact of exposure to early life adversity while people with no family history of alcoholism appear to be resilient. Blunted stress reactivity may reflect differential vulnerability to early life adversity in young adults with a family history of alcoholism.

Improving Oratory Skills: An "American Idol" Presentation Competition for Residents

Background

It is essential for physicians to master the ability to deliver high-quality oral presentations. Despite this, little time is dedicated throughout residency for training and refining this important skill. In order to solve this issue, we set out to design and implement a course which will improve the oratory skills of the resident physicians.

Methods

Senior surgical residents (postgraduate years three and four) were involved in a single-elimination tournament with the audience voting for the top presenters. Faculty provided feedback on oration, slide layout and overall presentation format throughout the course. Baseline and post-course survey responses were evaluated to assess a change in presentation skills after the “oratory course”.

Results

Seven senior residents participated as competitors. Seventeen other junior and chief residents (postgraduate years 1, 2 and 5) were involved as audience members along with several attending physicians, physician assistants and medical students. Both the presenters and audience appreciated a statistically significant improvement in communication skills and slide layout (p < 0.01).

Conclusion

The use of a structured course in public speaking and presentation skills proved to be effective in developing oratory skills in surgical residents when used in conjunction with an entertaining format.

Inverted U-Shaped Dose-Response Curve of the Anxiolytic Effect of Cannabidiol during Public Speaking in Real Life

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the anxiolytic effect of cannabidiol (CBD) in humans follows the same pattern of an inverted U-shaped dose-effect curve observed in many animal studies. Sixty healthy subjects of both sexes aged between 18 and 35 years were randomly assigned to five groups that received placebo, clonazepam (1 mg), and CBD (100, 300, and 900 mg). The subjects were underwent a test of public speaking in a real situation (TPSRS) where each subject had to speak in front of a group formed by the remaining participants. Each subject completed the anxiety and sedation factors of the Visual Analog Mood Scale and had their blood pressure and heart rate recorded. These measures were obtained in five experimental sessions with 12 volunteers each. Each session had four steps at the following times (minutes) after administration of the drug/placebo, as time 0: -5 (baseline), 80 (pre-test), 153 (speech), and 216 (post-speech). Repeated-measures analyses of variance showed that the TPSRS increased the subjective measures of anxiety, heart rate, and blood pressure. Student-Newman-Keuls test comparisons among the groups in each phase showed significant attenuation in anxiety scores relative to the placebo group in the group treated with clonazepam during the speech phase, and in the clonazepam and CBD 300 mg groups in the post-speech phase. Clonazepam was more sedative than CBD 300 and 900 mg and induced a smaller increase in systolic and diastolic blood pressure than CBD 300 mg. The results confirmed that the acute administration of CBD induced anxiolytic effects with a dose-dependent inverted U-shaped curve in healthy subjects, since the subjective anxiety measures were reduced with CBD 300 mg, but not with CBD 100 and 900 mg, in the post-speech phase.

Physical Activity Increases after an Affectively Arousing Daily Life Event

Evidence that structured physical activity can help to regulate affective state has spurred interest in identifying associations between unstructured physical activity and affective states during daily life. The present study examined whether stressful daily life situations that elicit affective arousal also elicit increased physical activity in the form of restless movement. The study compared the physical activity of professors (n = 25) after presenting a classroom lecture to their physical activity at the same time of day on a non-lecture workday. The expectation was that lecturing would increase affective arousal, leading to greater restless movement following the lecture compared to the non-lecture control day. The study assessed subjective arousal to confirm that arousal was higher during the lecture. The primary outcome measures were actigraphy-measured standing and stepping times and number of steps and posture transitions. Results indicate that energetic and tense arousal were higher during the lecture than during the control period. Mean (±SE) up time (standing and stepping) for the 1st minute of the 20 minute post-lecture period was double that of the last minute (32.8 ± 5.73 s to 16.5 ± 5.41 s), while it remained low throughout the comparison period on the control day (p = 0.01). Subjects also took more steps (p = 0.006) and engaged in more transitions between sitting and standing (p = 0.02) after the lecture than after the control period. These results support the conclusion that stressful daily life situations that elicit affective arousal also elicit increased physical activity in the form of restless movement and suggest that affective responses to stressful situations may be important determinants of physical activity during daily life.

Psychosocial stress based on public speech in humans: is there a real life/laboratory setting cross-adaptation?

Repeated or chronic exposure to stressors is associated with changes in neuroendocrine responses depending on the type, intensity, number and frequency of stress exposure as well as previous stress experience. The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that salivary cortisol and cardiovascular responses to real-life psychosocial stressors related to public performance can cross-adapt with responses to psychosocial stress induced by public speech under laboratory setting. The sample consisted of 22 healthy male volunteers, which were either actors, more precisely students of dramatic arts or non-actors, students of other fields. The stress task consisted of 15 min anticipatory preparation phase and 15 min of public speech on an emotionally charged topic. The actors, who were accustomed to public speaking, responded with a rise in salivary cortisol as well as blood pressure to laboratory public speech. The values of salivary cortisol, systolic blood pressure and state anxiety were lower in actors compared to non-actors. Unlike non-actors, subjects with experience in public speaking did not show stress-induced rise in the heart rate. Evaluation of personality traits revealed that actors scored significantly higher in extraversion than the subjects in the non-actor group. In conclusion, neuroendocrine responses to real-life stressors in actors can partially cross-adapt with responses to psychosocial stress under laboratory setting. The most evident adaptation was at the level of heart rate responses. The public speech tasks may be of help in evaluation of the ability to cope with stress in real life in artists by simple laboratory testing.

The Relationship between Virtual Self Similarity and Social Anxiety

In virtual reality (VR), it is possible to embody avatars that are dissimilar to the physical self. We examined whether embodying a dissimilar self in VR would decrease anxiety in a public speaking situation. We report the results of an observational pilot study and two laboratory experiments. In the pilot study (N = 252), participants chose an avatar to use in a public speaking task. Trait public speaking anxiety correlated with avatar preference, such that anxious individuals preferred dissimilar self-representations. In Study 1 (N = 82), differences in anxiety during a speech in front of a virtual audience were compared among participants embodying an assigned avatar whose face was identical to their real self, an assigned avatar whose face was other than their real face, or embodied an avatar of their choice. Anxiety differences were not significant, but there was a trend for lower anxiety with the assigned dissimilar avatar compared to the avatar looking like the real self. Study 2 (N = 105) was designed to explicate that trend, and further investigated anxiety differences with an assigned self or dissimilar avatar. The assigned dissimilar avatar reduced anxiety relative to the assigned self avatar for one measure of anxiety. We discuss implications for theories of self-representation as well as for applied uses of VR to treat social anxiety.

Helping improve dissemination of research: Toastmasters is a novel mechanism

Competencies for health professionals and students often include the ability to transfer knowledge to different audiences in a variety of ways. Consultation, presentation, teaching, multimedia, and posters are some examples. A recent question on a national listserv about writing, editing, and proofreading services in health sciences libraries prompted this column about a potentially novel way of helping students and faculty in health disciplines to improve their abilities to communicate professionally. In addition to the poster design and review services that one library offers, it is also the host of two Toastmasters International clubs that provide participants a nonthreatening, real-world environment to improve the content, structure, methods, and delivery of their written and spoken messages. A librarian on staff is a member of and serves as liaison to the two clubs.

An investigation into the factors that encourage learner participation in a large group medical classroom

BACKGROUND

Effective lectures often incorporate activities that encourage learner participation. A challenge for educators is how to facilitate this in the large group lecture setting. This study investigates the individual student characteristics involved in encouraging (or dissuading) learners to interact, ask questions, and make comments in class.

METHODS

Students enrolled in a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, St Kitts, were invited to complete a questionnaire canvassing their participation in the large group classroom. Data from the questionnaire were analyzed using Excel (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) and the R software environment (http://www.r-project.org/).

RESULTS

One hundred and ninety-two students completed the questionnaire (response rate, 85.7%). The results showed statistically significant differences between male and female students when asked to self-report their level of participation (P=0.011) and their confidence to participate (P<0.001) in class. No statistically significant difference was identified between different age groups of students (P=0.594). Student responses reflected that an "aversion to public speaking" acted as the main deterrent to participating during a lecture. Female participants were 3.56 times more likely to report a fear of public speaking than male participants (odds ratio 3.56, 95% confidence interval 1.28-12.33, P=0.01). Students also reported "smaller sizes of class and small group activities" and "other students participating" as factors that made it easier for them to participate during a lecture.

CONCLUSION

In this study, sex likely played a role in learner participation in the large group veterinary classroom. Male students were more likely to participate in class and reported feeling more confident to participate than female students. Female students in this study commonly identified aversion to public speaking as a factor which held them back from participating in the large group lecture setting. These are important findings for veterinary and medical educators aiming to improve learner participation in the classroom. Potential ways of addressing this challenge include addition of small group activities and audience response systems during lectures, and inclusion of training interventions in public speaking at an early stage of veterinary and medical curricula.

The 5-HT1D/1B receptor agonist sumatriptan enhances fear of simulated speaking and reduces plasma levels of prolactin

This study measured the effects of the preferential 5-HT1D/1B receptor agonist sumatriptan in healthy volunteers who performed the Simulated Public Speaking Test (SPST), which recruits the neural network involved in panic disorder and social anxiety disorder. In a double-blind, randomised experiment, 36 males received placebo (12), 50 mg (12) or 100 mg (12) of sumatriptan 2 h before the SPST. Subjective, physiological and hormonal measures were taken before, during and after the test. The dose of 100 mg of sumatriptan increased speech-induced fear more than either a 50mg dose of the drug or placebo. The largest dose of sumatriptan also enhanced vigilance more than placebo, without any change in blood pressure, heart rate or electrical skin conductance. Sumatriptan decreased plasma levels of prolactin. A significant but moderate increase in plasma cortisol after SPST occurred, independent of treatment. Because sumatriptan decreases 5-HT release into the extracellular space, the potentiation of SPST-induced fear caused by the drug supports the hypothesis that 5-HT attenuates this emotional state. As acute administration of antidepressants has also been shown to enhance speaking fear and increase plasma prolactin, in contrast to sumatriptan, the 5-HT regulation of stress-hormone release is likely to be different from that of emotion.

Assessing public speaking fear with the short form of the Personal Report of Confidence as a Speaker scale: confirmatory factor analyses among a French-speaking community sample

BACKGROUND

The main aim of this study was to assess the reliability and structural validity of the French version of the 12-item version of the Personal Report of Confidence as Speaker (PRCS), one of the most promising measurements of public speaking fear.

METHODS

A total of 611 French-speaking volunteers were administered the French versions of the short PRCS, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale, as well as the Trait version of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory-II, which assess the level of anxious and depressive symptoms, respectively.

RESULTS

Regarding its structural validity, confirmatory factor analyses indicated a single-factor solution, as implied by the original version. Good scale reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.86) was observed. The item discrimination analysis suggested that all the items contribute to the overall scale score reliability. The French version of the short PRCS showed significant correlations with the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (r = 0.522), the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale (r = 0.414), the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (r = 0.516), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (r = 0.361).

CONCLUSION

The French version of the short PRCS is a reliable and valid measure for the evaluation of the fear of public speaking among a French-speaking sample. These findings have critical consequences for the measurement of psychological and pharmacological treatment effectiveness in public speaking fear among a French-speaking sample.

Reliability of a seminar grading rubric in a grand rounds course

Purpose:

Formal presentations are a common requirement for students in health professional programs, and evaluations are often viewed as subjective. To date, literature describing the reliability or validity of seminar grading rubrics is lacking. The objectives of this study were to characterize inter-rater agreement and internal consistency of a grading rubric used in a grand rounds seminar course.

Methods:

Retrospective study of 252 student presentations given from fall 2007 to fall 2008. Data including student and faculty demographics, overall content score, overall communication scores, subcomponents of content and communication, and total presentation scores were collected. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS, 16.0.

Results:

The rubric demonstrated internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.826). Mean grade difference between faculty graders was 4.54 percentage points (SD = 3.614), with ≤ 10-point difference for 92.5% of faculty evaluations. Student self evaluations correlated with faculty scores for content, communication, and overall presentation (r = 0.513, r = 0.455, and r = 0.539; P < 0.001 for all respectively). When comparing mean faculty scores to student’s self-evaluations between quintiles, students with lower faculty evaluations overestimated their performance, and those with high faculty evaluations underestimated their performance (P < 0.001).

Conclusion:

The seminar evaluation rubric demonstrated inter-rater agreement and internal consistency.