預期特質焦慮與性別差異對英語公開演說情境焦慮所造成的作用—以台灣一所國中為例

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(1)國立台灣師範大學英語學系碩士論文 Master Thesis Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 預期特質焦慮與性別差異對英語公開演說情境焦慮所造成的作用—以台灣一所國中為例. Public Speaking State Anxiety as a Function of Anticipatory Trait Anxiety and Gender Difference – A Case Study in a Junior High School in Taiwan 指導教授：周中天博士 Advisor: Dr. Chung-tien Chou 研究生：林嬿甄 Yan-zhen Lin. 中華民國一百年八月 August 2011.

(2) 中文摘要本研究觀察在英語為外語的環境裡，特質焦慮高低及性別差異，對於英語公開演說裡不同階段的情境焦慮影響作用為何。研究對象為 66 位在台灣北部某一國中裡，參與一場英語演講比賽的國中生。比賽前後他們分別先填完了由情境特質焦慮良表(STAI)改編的 A-Trait 及 A- State 量表。本研究分別觀察了演說三個不同階段的特質焦慮變化：(1) anticipation 階段 (賽前一分鐘)，(2) confrontation 階段 (比賽開始後第一分鐘)，和(3) release 階段 (比賽結束後一分鐘)。本實驗結果摘要如下：第一，無論高低特質焦慮組，都呈現 sensitization 圖形。也就是說他們的特質焦慮在 anticipation 階段較低，confrontation 階段升到最高，最後在 release 階段下降。第二，男女焦慮組呈現相同的 sensitization 圖形。另外，雖然在統計上的差別並不顯著，但女生的每一階段的特質焦慮幅度皆高於男生。第三，整體學生在三個階段的特質焦慮平均數分布情形也呈現 sensitization 圖形。這些發現顯示，這個比賽的事前準備過程，可能有助於降低學生的焦慮。另一方面，此演說活動對於學生來說，仍是一個強烈的刺激，造成相當壓力。未來的研究應繼續研究有效的各種外語教學方法，以利幫助學生降低口說英語焦慮。關鍵字：公開演說焦慮、怯場、英語第二外語演說、性別差異. i.

(3) ABSTRACT This study examined the functions of different levels of trait anxiety and gender difference on the distributions of the state anxiety during different stages of a public speech in a foreign language environment. The subjects were the 66 participants who joined in a public speech contest in a junior high school in the northern Taiwan. Before the contest, they filled out the A-Trait scale adapted from the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and then immediately after the contest, they completed the A-State scale adapted from the STAI. The fluctuations of the state anxiety were observed during three different stages of the public speech: (1) the anticipation stage (one minute before the speech), (2) the confrontation stage (the first minute of the speech), and (3) the release stage (one minute after the speech). The following are the summary of the results. First, both high- and low-trait anxious groups showed the sensitization pattern. That is, their anxiety was relatively lower at the anticipation stage, climaxed at the confrontation stage, and then descended at the release stage. Second, both the two gender groups revealed the same sensitization pattern. Furthermore, females were found to have higher levels of state anxiety at all stages than males even though there was no significance between gender difference. Third, the overall means of all the participants’ state anxiety narrow-banded for the three stages also exhibited the sensitization pattern. The findings suggest that the preparation process before the English speech contest may help the students lower their anxiety. On the other hand, the English speech contest in this study seems to be a strong stimulus for the speakers. Future researchers are recommended to conduct more studies on the effects of different pedagogical strategies in a foreign language environment to facilitate students’ anxiety reduction. Keywords: public speaking anxiety, stage fright, EFL speaking, gender difference. ii.

(4) ACKNOLEDGEMENT I must show my appreciation to those who have supported me during the process of writing my thesis. First, I am very grateful to my adviser, Dr. Chung-tien Chou. Based on his experienced academic knowledge, he gave me plenty of precious suggestions and helped me put my experiment into practice. He also spent a lot time marking corrections to my thesis to make it more fluent and readable. Besides, I truly thank him for his continuous positive comments and encouragement. Without him, the completion of my thesis would be impossible. Second, I want to show my thankfulness to my committee members, Dr. Wu-chang Chang and Dr. Chin-kuei Cheng. Thanks for the enthusiastic participation and the constructive suggestions they made for modifying my thesis. Third, I want to show my gratitude to Dr. Chris Sawyer, who provided me the two measurement instruments in my study, the A-Trait and the A-State scales. He answered me quite a few questions with great patience by email and allowed me to have a replication of his study. Fourth, I am thankful to my colleagues, including Cui-wen Lin, Zhen-zhen Lin, Wan-qi Zhang, and Yu-man Liao, as well as several student volunteers. They gave me lots of administrative support and helped me conduct this study in the formal English speech contest in our school. Fifth, I deeply appreciate the spiritual support from the other three members in my study group, including Michelle Hsu, Nina Yu, and Cindy Li. We read extensively to find our research topics, shared views together, and helped each other when facing all kinds of problems. Finally, I want to thank my dear family. They always provide me the best care and warmth I need. They give me everything unconditionally and never expect for return. I, who have been an anxious speaker, am so lucky that I learned more about anxiety through the topic of my thesis. I hope the completion of my thesis can also benefit those who feel anxious while speaking English in public.. iii.

(5) TABLE OF CONTENTS Chinese Abstract................................................................................................................................i Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgement........................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................. iv List of Tables....................................................................................................................................vi List of Figures .................................................................................................................................vii Chapter One: Introduction...............................................................................................................1 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.1.1 Current English speaking activities conducted in Taiwan .............................................1 1.2 The Focus of the Study: Public Speaking Anxiety .................................................................3 1.3 Purposes and Significance of the Study..................................................................................4 1.4 Summary ................................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter Two: Literature Review......................................................................................................7 2.1 The Effects of Anxiety.............................................................................................................7 2.2 Definitions of Public Speaking Anxiety, Communication Apprehension, Stage Fright, and Social Anxiety............................................................................................................................... 9 2.3 State and Trait Anxiety......................................................................................................... 10 2.3.1 The conceptualization of state and trait anxiety........................................................... 10 2.4 Wide-band and Narrow-band Anxiety................................................................................. 11 2.5 Causes of Public Speaking Anxiety ...................................................................................... 13 2.6 Stages of Public Speaking Anxiety ....................................................................................... 16 2.6.1 Physiological and psychological arousal patterns of public speaking anxiety.............. 17 2.6.2 Sensitization and habituation........................................................................................ 17 2.6.3 Trait anxiety, sensitization, and habituation ................................................................ 20 2.7 Gender Difference in Patterns of Public Speaking Anxiety................................................. 21 2.8 Summary .............................................................................................................................. 23 Chapter Three: Methodology ......................................................................................................... 25 3.1 Research Questions .............................................................................................................. 25 3.2 Participants........................................................................................................................... 25 3.3 Research Instruments........................................................................................................... 27 3.4 Data Collection Procedure.................................................................................................... 28 3.5 Data Analysis Procedure ...................................................................................................... 29 3.6 Summary .............................................................................................................................. 30 Chapter Four: Findings.................................................................................................................. 32 4.1 The Overall Means and Standard Deviations of State Anxiety Narrow-banded for the Three Stages ............................................................................................................................... 32 4.2 Different Levels of Trait Anxiety and State Anxiety Narrow-banded for the Three Stages. 32 4.3 Gender Difference and State Anxiety Narrow-banded for the Three Stages ....................... 37 4.4 Summary .............................................................................................................................. 41 Chapter Five: Disscussion And Conclusion.................................................................................... 43 5.1 Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 43 5.1.1 The overall means of the state anxiety narrow-banded for the three stages ................ 43 5.1.2 High-trait-anxious group and low-trait-anxious group ................................................ 44 5.1.3 Male group and female group ....................................................................................... 45 5.2 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 46 5.2.1 Summary of findings..................................................................................................... 46 5.2.2 Pedagogical implications............................................................................................... 47 5.2.3 Insights from the study ................................................................................................. 47 5.2.4 Limitations of the study ................................................................................................ 48 5.2.5 Suggestions for future studies ....................................................................................... 49 5.3 Summary .............................................................................................................................. 50 References....................................................................................................................................... 52. iv.

(6) Appendix A Rules of the Regional English Speech Contest (In Chinese) Appendix B. Rules of the English Contests Set by the Junior High School (In Chinese). Appendix C Anticipatory Trait Anxiety Version of the A-Trait Scale (Lewis et al., 2007) Appendix D Anticipatory Trait Anxiety Version of the A-Trait Scale (Chinese Version) Appendix E The A-State Scale Narrow-banded for the Three Stages (Lewis et al., 2007) Appendix F The A-State Scale Narrow-banded for the Three Stages (Chinese Version) Appendix G. Four Topics for Seventh-grade Contestants. Appendix H. Four Topics for Eighth-grade and Ninth-grade Contestants. v.

(7) List of Tables Table 1. Means and Standard Deviations of All the Participants for the STAI (A-State) at the Three Narrow-banded Stages......................................................................................................... 32 Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations of the High-trait-anxious Group and the Low-trait-anxious Group for the STAI (A-State) at the Three Narrow-banded Stages................ 33 Table 3. Tests of the Effect of State Anxiety Stages and the Interaction Effect Between Levels of Trait Anticipatory Anxiety and State Anxiety Stages ..................................................................... 34 Table 4.. Test of the Effect of Levels of Anticipatory Trait Anxiety ............................................ 34. Table 5.. Test of the Main Effect of Different Levels of Anticipatory Trait Anxiety ................... 35. Table 6.. Test of the Main Effect of State Anxiety Stages for High-trait-anxious Speakers ........ 36. Table 7.. Test of the Main Effect of State Anxiety Stages for Low-trait-anxious Speakers......... 36. Table 8. Means and Standard Deviations of the Male Group and the Female Group for the STAI (A-State) at the Three Narrow-banded Stages ..................................................................... 38 Table 9. Tests of the Effect of State Anxiety Stages and the Interaction Effect Between Gender Difference and State Anxiety Stages ............................................................................................... 38 Table 10.. Test of the Effect of Gender Difference....................................................................... 39. Table 11.. Test of the Main Effect of State Anxiety Stages for the Male Group .......................... 39. Table 12.. Test of the Main Effect of State Anxiety Stages for the Female Group....................... 40. vi.

(8) List of Figures Figure 1. The distributions of state anxiety for high-trait-anxious speakers and low-trait-anxious speakers at the three narrow-banded stages...................................................... 37 Figure 2. The distributions of state anxiety for male speakers and female speakers at the three narrow-banded stages..................................................................................................................... 41. vii.

(9) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background For the English education in Taiwan, the inconsistency between teaching objectives and actual teaching has caused problems in students’ speaking and listening abilities. According to the Grade 1-9 Curriculum Guidelines, the elementary and junior high school students in Taiwan are expected to adequately develop their four skills in their learning process. However, since speaking and listening tests have not been formally included in any kind of school entrance examinations in Taiwan, many teachers tend to focus their teaching on reading and writing. Thus, it is very common that grammatical knowledge has been overemphasized in many English classes in Taiwan (Pan, 2002). As a result, it is not surprising that many Taiwanese students who do excellently on their grammatical tests can not perform as well in their spoken English. Since English has become an international language nowadays, the acquisition of the four skills has been regarded as the objectives for the English learning all over the world. Nevertheless, because of the lack of oral practices, it is a common phenomenon in Taiwan that the students’ English speaking and listening abilities are not as good as their writing ability (Yu, 2010). 1.1.1 Current English speaking activities conducted in Taiwan. To enhance English oral ability, both the Taiwan government and many private organizations in Taiwan have invested a lot to arouse students’ interests in speaking English. First, the Language Training and Test Center (LTTC) developed the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) in 2000. The test includes five levels, and each level examines the participants’ abilities in the four skills to a specific extent. According to Yu (2010), more and more universities in Taiwan even set thresholds for their undergraduates who have to pass the GEPT at a certain level before they graduate. 1.

(10) from school. This regulation encourages many college students to spend more time improving their English oral communication skills than before. Second, many educational institutions in Taiwan regularly hold English speaking activities for students. For example, the Department of Education in Taipei City Government has English speech contests for high school students each year. The Department of Education in New Taipei City Government conducts various English speaking activities every year, such as Reader’s Theater and singing contests for elementary school students, singing, speech, and English drama contests for junior high school students. In addition to those regional activities, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. also holds English speech and drama contests for all high school students in Taiwan each year. Since 2002, Ministries of Education and Foreign Affairs in Taiwan have co-sponsored the Young Diplomats program to encourage young people to pay more attention to international affairs. The delegation members are selected through all kinds of competitions which contain English impromptu speech contests in groups. Furthermore, so far, there have been 20 English Villages all over Taiwan which provide a bilingual environment for students to practice speaking English in their daily lives (Ministry of Education, R. O. C., 2009). Third, private organizations in Taiwan also have many English speaking activities for students each year. The Inter-Collegiate English Speech Contest sponsored by the Rotary Club of Taipei and Studio Classroom is an example. It has been held for all the college students in Taiwan for more than 50 years. This year, even some temples in Taiwan start to hold English speech contests in order to encourage students to improve their speaking ability (Da Jia Jenn Lann Temple, 2011). Besides, there are still many other organizations which support the English speaking activities in many areas around Taiwan.. 2.

(11) 1.2 The Focus of the Study: Public Speaking Anxiety The focus of this study was on the English speech contests. Each year, in order to attend the contests held by the educational institutions, many schools in Taiwan have to select their candidates first through a preliminary contest within their own schools. This researcher, who had trained her students to attend the school contests for over six years, found some confusing phenomena. First, since the students had to participate in the speech contest, their English competence must be higher than all the other students. Those who could do the best on their grammatical tests, have clear pronunciation, and speak fluently were usually assigned by the teachers as contestants. However, this researcher found that the students’ performance did not always correspond with their competence. For example, some students who usually performed well in grammatical tests were found to make quite a few mistakes when speaking English on the stage, such as usages of tense, word order, and diction. Others who often pronounced clearly in their daily conversation were found to be unable to speak up in front of the audience. Instead, they delivered their speech with a tremulous voice and a stiff facial expression. Still others even forgot what they were going to say during a speech and finished their speech with lots of embarrassment. Second, compared to male students, female students seemed to manifest more apprehension about speaking English in public. In this researcher’s observation, females tended to be more sensitive to anxiety and needed more encouragement from the teachers when preparing for a speech. After a period of training, females also tended to have more negative thoughts. For example, they would be more easily affected by the responses of the judges and the audience and worry that their performance could not meet their expectations. In the end, some of them even preferred to abandon the chances of attending the speech contest.. 3.

(12) After training her students to prepare for the English impromptu speech, Hsieh (2006) identified nine problems for college students in Taiwan. These problems included small vocabulary, word usage, grammar, speech organization, time control, key points development, attention getting, no ideas, and difficult topics. However, since the students selected as contestants were usually those with high English proficiency, this researcher wondered if their poor performance during a public speech contest might originate from anxiety rather than competence.. 1.3 Purposes and Significance of the Study Anxiety is usually categorized as either trait or state (Woodrow, 2006). Trait anxiety refers to a person’s relatively permanent tendency to feel anxious when responding to all kinds of events while state anxiety is a short-term anxiety experienced at certain moments (Woodrow, 2006). In the context of a public speech, state and trait anxiety can also be narrowed down into various stages for researchers to understand the psychological anxiety patterns of speakers’ speech performance (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998; Behnke & Sawyer, 1999). Anticipation (one minute before the speech), confrontation (the first minute of the speech), adaptation (one minute before the end of the speech), release (one minute after the speech) are four stages widely observed by researchers (Freeman, Sawyer, & Behnke, 1997; Behnke and Sawyer, 1998; Mladenka & Sawyer,1998; Sawyer, C. R. and R. R. Behnke, 2002; Behnke & Sawyer, 2004 ; Lewis, Elledge, Jernberg, Sawyer, & Behnke’s study, 2007). In Taiwan, most studies which addressed the issues of oral anxiety only tend to build a relationship between specific variables and the overall wide-band speaking anxiety. For example, Wang (2009) examined the relationship between the overall foreign language speaking anxiety and perfectionism. Li (2010) used a wide-band measurement of speaking anxiety to observe the relationship between speaking. 4.

(13) anxiety and speaking strategies among university students in Taiwan. This study, however, used the narrow-band trait and state anxiety scales to measure the distribution of state anxiety at various stages within a public speech based on different levels of trait anxiety. The narrow-band state anxiety scale in this study made it possible to understand the distribution of state anxiety at different stages. Besides, the narrow-band version of trait anxiety has been an effective scale which was found to provide more validity than the wide-band trait anxiety version (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998). After having trained students to attend the English speech contests for years, this researcher hoped to understand the distribution of students’ anxiety within a public speech. She wanted to know if high- and low-trait anxious students showed any difference in the distribution of state anxiety. Besides, gender difference was also examined in this study. Thus, this study replicated Lewis et al.’s study (2007). Two narrow-band anxiety scales were used in this study: The A-State scale and the A-Trait scale adapted from the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). This study was conducted in a formal English speech contest in a junior high school in Taiwan. Due to the time constraint, only three of the four stages were observed: Anticipation, confrontation, and release stages. The purpose of the study was to understand whether trait anxiety and gender difference would make any difference in the prediction of state anxiety at three narrow-banded stages. In addition, since this study was conducted in Taiwan, it can provide some observations in the research area of public speaking anxiety in a foreign language environment. 1.4 Summary This researcher, who had trained students to attend the English speech contest in her school for years, found many confusing phenomena. First, since students who would attend English speech contests were usually those with high competence, they were. 5.

(14) expected to well perform. However, she found many of her students manifested anxiety of speaking English in public, made a lot of grammatical mistakes, and performed poorly. Second, she also found that female students tended to show more fears of speaking on the stages than male students. They had more negative thoughts and even tended to give up the chance of attending the contest than males. Therefore, she wondered if public speaking anxiety was the main factor that influences students’ performance instead of competence. Anxiety is often classified into two kinds: trait anxiety and state anxiety. Trait anxiety refers to a person’s relatively long-term tendency to feel anxious which he or she will feel in reaction to all kinds of events. State anxiety, on the other hand, refers to a person’s temporary anxiety which he or she experiences at specific moments. In the field of public speaking, these two anxieties can also be narrowed down into different stages. For example, anticipation (one minute before the speech), confrontation (the first minute of the speech), adaptation (one minute before the end of the speech), and release (one minute after the speech) are the four stages which researchers usually observed during the whole process of a public speech. Contrary to the narrow-band anxiety, the overall anxiety is called as wide-band anxiety. In Taiwan, most studies about speaking tend to merely build a relationship between specific variables and overall wide-band speaking anxiety. In this study, this researcher replicated Lewis et al.’s study (2007) and used the narrow-band trait and state anxiety scales to know the distribution of state anxiety during various stages within a public speech. Three narrow-banded stages were observed: Anticipation (one minute before the speech), confrontation (the first minute of the speech), and release (one minute after the speech). Besides, gender difference was also examined in this study. With this study, this. researcher hoped to provide some observations in the research area of public speaking anxiety in a foreign language environment.. 6.

(15) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter includes seven sections. First, the facilitating and debilitating effects of anxiety are discussed. Second, definitions of several terms related to oral anxiety are differentiated, including public speaking anxiety, communication apprehension, stage fright, and social anxiety. Third, the definitions of state and trait anxiety and the conceptualization of the two concepts are discussed. Fourth, the definitions of narrow-band and wide-band anxiety are presented. Fifth, various causes of public speaking anxiety are discussed. Sixth, the review of stages of public speaking anxiety are presented through the following issues: the definitions of various stages of public speaking anxiety, the difference between physiological and psychological arousal patterns of public speaking anxiety, the formation of the sensitization pattern and the habituation pattern, and the relationship among trait anxiety, sensitization, and habituation. Finally, gender difference in patterns of public speaking anxiety is discussed. 2.1 The Effects of Anxiety Language anxiety has been a popular topic for analysis. For decades, researchers have been debating on the issue of the effects of language anxiety. Scovel (1978) suggested that anxiety could be either facilitating or debilitating. Facilitating anxiety would improve learners’ language performance while debilitating anxiety would have an adverse influence on their learning. Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) established the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and found a significant negative relationship between anxiety and foreign language learning. They believed that many foreign language learners experienced anxiety in some aspects of language learning. Sparks and Ganschow (1991), however, argued that anxiety might be merely. 7.

(16) the manifestation of language learning problems. They found that many college students who had difficulty learning a foreign language were diagnosed as those with learning disabilities. Besides, they found that those students also showed problems in the written or oral aspects of their native language. Based on their Linguistic Coding Deficit Hypothesis (LCDH), they asserted that the lack of phonological awareness might be the major cause of the learning difficulties instead of anxiety (Sparks & Ganschow, 1991). They also argued that in Horwitz et al.’s study (1986), over half of the questions in FLCAS were related to certain aspects of receptive and expressive languages. Furthermore, in the study, several additional questions involved learning difficulties and also commonly happened to those with learning disabilities. Nevertheless, MacIntyre (1995) contended that anxiety may be either a consequence of language learning or a cause which influences language performances. He considered “worry” and “emotionality” as the cognitive and affective components of anxiety. When learners are processing their task-relevant information, worry and other task-irrelevant cognitive activities which are related to anxiety will occupy some of the limited space in the processing system. Besides increasing the difficulty of language processing, the arousal of anxiety will also make the learners invest their efforts more. Thus, the extent to which anxiety can facilitate or debilitate language performance will depend on the extent of the additional efforts which the learners make. When the task is simple and the negative effects caused by anxiety are exceeded by the enhanced efforts which a learner makes, the language performance will be improved. Otherwise, when the task is too difficult for the extra efforts made by the learner to compensate for the reduced effectiveness in the processing system, anxiety may negatively influence the performance. MacIntyre (1995) then concluded that some anxiety may facilitate learners’ language learning while overloaded anxiety can deteriorate their performance.. 8.

(17) 2.2 Definitions of Public Speaking Anxiety, Communication Apprehension, Stage Fright, and Social Anxiety In a foreign language environment, anxiety has great influence on many aspects of learners’ performance, especially on speaking skills (Horwitz et al., 1986). The situations that involve formal speaking and interaction have actually been reported as the most anxiety provoking (Leary & Kowalski, 1995). This explains why public speaking anxiety has also been referred to as one of the most common anxieties (Bippus & Daly, 1999). By definition, public speaking anxiety refers to a kind of anxiety which happens to a speaker when he or she delivers a public speech. In addition, communication apprehension, stage fright, and social anxiety are all terms which are used to describe the relationship between speaking and anxiety. Horwitz et al. (1986) suggested that communication apprehension is one of the three features of foreign language anxiety. It was defined as a kind of shyness which makes learners afraid of communicating with others (Horwitz et al., 1986). In Clevenger’s definition of stage fright, it refers to “any emotional condition in which emotion overcomes intellect to the extent that communication is hampered, either in audience reception or in speaker self-expression, where the immediate objective or stimulus of the emotion is the speech-audience situation” (as cited in Ayres, 1986). According to Leary and Kowalski (1995), social anxiety is an umbrella term for all the constructs, containing public speaking anxiety, stage fright, communication apprehension, and audience anxiety. Based on Leary’s definition, social anxiety is aroused from “the prospect or presence of interpersonal evaluation in real or imagined social settings” (as cited in Young, 1991). To sum up, public speaking anxiety refers to a kind of communication apprehension which indicates people’s fears of communicating with others. It is almost identical with stage fright, which is either experienced by the speakers or. 9.

(18) perceived by the audience and often causes problems in communication. It also belongs to a kind of social anxiety, which can be provoked from interpersonal evaluation either in real settings or through the imagination of such settings. 2.3 State and Trait Anxiety Based on its duration, anxiety can be classified into two types: State anxiety and trait anxiety (Woodrow, 2006). State anxiety is a temporary anxiety which a person usually experiences at a specific moment (Woodrow, 2006). Trait anxiety, on the other hand, refers to a relatively long-term tendency of a person to feel anxious, which he or she may undergo in reaction to various events (Woodrow, 2006). In 1970, Spielberger, Gorsuch, and Lushene (1970) published the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). It has been a popular empirical scale used among all kinds of fields to measure state and trait anxiety (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998). 2.3.1 The conceptualization of state and trait anxiety Although the classification of state and trait anxiety has been widely used in studies about anxiety, it was not until 1966 that the two types of anxiety were more clearly defined (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998). Before 1966, the concept of anxiety had been referred to two ambiguous types of anxiety (Spielberger, 1966). One was “a transitory state or condition of the organism that varies in intensity and fluctuates over time” (Spielberger, 1966, p.12). The other was “a personality trait － to individual differences in the extent to which different people are characterized by anxiety states and by prominent defenses against such states” (Spielberger, 1966, p.12). The two terms, state anxiety and trait anxiety, resulted from Cattell and Scheier’s factor analytic studies in 1958 and 1961 (as cited in Spielberger, 1966). Then Spielberger (1966) discriminated “a transitory state” from “a relatively stable personality trait” and made a clear distinction among “anxiety status,” “the stimulus conditions that evoke them, ” and “ the defenses that serve to avoid them” (p.16). He defined state. 10.

(19) anxiety as “an empirical process which is taking place now at a given level of intensity” (Spielberger, 1966, p.16). Trait anxiety, on the other hand, refers to “a latent disposition for a reaction of a certain type to occur if it is triggered by appropriate (sufficiently stressful) stimuli” (Spielberger, 1966, p.16). In 1974, Behnke, Carlile, and Lamb applied the two distinguished concepts of state and trait anxiety to a public speaking context (as cited in Behnke & Sawyer, 1998). The STAI, which was created by Spielberger et al. (1970), has been a practical measurement widely used to examine both trait and state anxiety (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998; Behnke & Sawyer, 2001; Behnke & Sawyer, 2002; Behnke & Sawyer, 2004; Freeman et al., 1997; Lewis et al., 2007; Mladenka & Sawyer, 1998). It is composed of two scales, the A-Trait and A-State scales, which respectively include 20 similar Liker-type items. By asking participants to describe “how they generally feel,” the A-Trait scale measures people’s trait anxiety, while by answering “how they feel right now,” participants’ state anxiety is examined in the A-State scale. 2.4 Wide-band and Narrow-band Anxiety In order to raise validity and to more precisely predict the result of a study, the STAI has been narrow-banded for different empirical purposes (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998; Behnke & Sawyer, 1999; Behnke & Sawyer, 2000; Witt & Behnke, 2006). Researchers not only can use the STAI to examine the overall or wide-band anxiety of a specific event but can also test the anxiety levels at specific moments during an event with a narrow-band version of the STAI. As far as public speaking anxiety is concerned, it is very common for researchers to probe into the relationship between anxiety and speech with a wide-band version of anxiety measurement. Witt and Behnke’s study (2006), for example, used a wide-band version of the STAI to examine three types of assignments and found that different speech assignments may cause different levels of. 11.

(20) anxiety. They revealed that speakers showed both the highest trait and state anxiety for impromptu speeches, second for extemporaneous speeches, and lowest for manuscript reading. This may be because the time for preparation is not the same. The shorter the time is, the more difficult a task may be. Nevertheless, a research like this may not truly describe the fluctuation of anxiety within the whole speech performance. Behnke and Sawyer (1998) observed four narrow-banded “milestones” or stages in which a speaker would experience different levels of anxiety during a speech. They are one minute before the presentation of the speech (anticipation), the first minute of the speech (confrontation), one minute before the end of the speech (adaptation), and one minute after the speech (release). Studies on the distributions of anxiety like this will usually narrow down state anxiety into different stages to observe the differences among individuals (Lewis, Elledge, Jernberg, Sawyer, & Behnke, 2007). According to Behnke and Sawyer (1998), “the ability to focus on specific problem areas, or events, of student performance is sometimes preferable to vague or more broadly described pedagogical generalizations” (p. 161). By the strategy of narrowing, the narrow-band versions of the STAI also have higher validity than the wide-band ones (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998). In fact, not only state anxiety but also trait anxiety can be narrow-banded for different stages during a public speech. Behnke and Sawyer (1998) considered that delivering a public speech as a complex experience which involves various stages and different levels of arousal. For them, “asking speakers to characterize their trait views of complex, multi-phasic events with a general, global evaluation is like using average annual daily temperature to predict or describe peak summer weather events” (p.162). It seems to be more reasonable to narrow down the trait anxiety to different stages than to view it as a whole. Additionally, they also believed that there are two advantages for narrow-band trait measures. First, they are helpful in observing the. 12.

(21) existence of trait differences and patterns. Second, it is possible for narrow-band trait measures to “improve the ability to predict specific state anxiety responses based upon these narrow-trait anxiety characteristics” (p.162). Indeed, Behnke and Sawyer (1998) have proved that narrow-band trait anxiety was a better predictor of state speech anxiety rather than wide-band and medium-band trait anxiety. In Lewis et al.’s study (2007), a narrow-band anticipatory trait anxiety version of the STAI has also been used as a reliable scale to predict the fluctuations of state anxiety at different stages. 2.5 Causes of Public Speaking Anxiety Since public speaking anxiety has been commonly experienced by many language learners, many studies have tried to identify the reasons which cause oral anxiety during a public speech. Young (1991) has identified six sources of anxiety, including personal and interpersonal anxieties, learner beliefs about language learning, instructor beliefs about language learning, instructor-learner interaction, classroom procedures, and language testing. Based on these sources, public speaking anxiety belongs to one of the personal and interpersonal anxieties. Furthermore, perceived competence (Chesebro et al., 1992; MacIntyre & MacDonald), perceived audience congeniality (MacIntyre & MacDonald, 1998), audience expectation (Ayres 1986), audience interest (MacIntyre, MacDonald, & Thivierge, 1997), preparation (Daly, Vangelisti, & Weber, 1995), the affective contagion from the former speaker (Behnke & Sawyer, 1994 ), and speakers’ beliefs (Daly, Vangelisti, Neel, & Cavanaugh, 1989) were all found to be associated with public speaking anxiety. Bippus and Daly (1999) also found nine factors which people believed would cause public speaking anxiety: Humiliation, preparation, physical appearance, rigid rules, personal traits, audience interest, unfamiliar role, mistakes, and negative results. According to Scovel (1978), there are usually three ways to measure anxiety:. 13.

(22) by behavioral tests, by the subjects’ self-report, and by physiological tests. Through behavioral tests, others rather than the subjects themselves are required to observe the subjects’ behavior when they are experiencing anxiety. The second way is to have the subjects self-report how they feel about their anxiety. Measurements of heart rate, blood pressure, and palmar sweating are examples of the third way which measures how a subject physically feels. As far as the three ways of measurements are concerned, there are some specific concerns to which attention need to be paid in order to conduct a valid research on public speaking. As for the first way, it is necessary that the observers must be capable of measuring the phenomenon required to be observed. For example, the speaker’s performance and the audience’s response are usually two of the major focuses of observation during a speech performance. Then how to train the observers to precisely measure the speaker’s and the audience’s behavior may be a problem. Behnke and Sawyer’s study (1994), which required the audience to rate each speaker’s state anxiety, is an example like this. In the study, the observation task was done at the undergraduate level. It will be more difficult if it is done with junior high school students since they only have limited knowledge about what actually happens in the context of a public speech. As for the second way of measurement, there are two points that need to be dealt with caution. First, by self-reports, the subjects are often required to make a connection between their speech performance and their speech anxiety. This task will be more easily done when the subjects are provided with a well-established scale for speaking performance and anxiety. If the research is conducted with a questionnaire in an open format, it will then solely depend on the subject’s knowledge to think of the relationship between the two variables. Then if the participant does not posses adequate background information for the observation, the results of the study may be limited to a certain degree. An example like this is Bippus. 14.

(23) and Daly’s research (1999). In their preliminary study, they required their participants to think of as many reasons that people generally believe will cause public speaking anxiety as possible. The study was done without too many difficulties since the participants were all native speakers who had attended communication courses at college. However, if the research is conducted in a foreign language environment and with a group of younger participants, then the limited background knowledge will cause problems. Second, some studies involving self-reports in studies on public speaking will require their subjects to immerse in their imaginations to construct the settings of the public speaking context. Then the more concrete the contexts needed to arouse anxiety are, the more persuasive the research may be. MacIntyre et al.’s research (1997), for example, had their subjects rate their anxiety, willingness to speak, and quality of presentations through their imaginations of eight contexts. Although merely anticipation of a public speech can even cause anxiety (as cited in MacIntyre et al., 1997), their research process through imaginations was still unobservable and might be criticized that it was too subjective and unreliable. As for the third way of measurement, there are two concerns worth noticing. First, Scovel (1978) suggested that the physiological measurements which claim to measure anxiety must be highly related to anxiety. Second, it should be noticed that there are still individual differences in the physiological responses among various participants (Scovel, 1978). Take McCullough, Russell, Behnke, Sawyer, and Witt’s research (2006) for example. They examined the relationship among body sensations, state of mind, and anticipatory public speaking state anxiety. For the study to be valid, it must be conducted in the assumption in which body sensations and state of mind are akin to public speaking anxiety. Moreover, even if the relationships between the three variables are proven to be highly correlated, variations among individuals still exist. That is, it may be true that some high anxious speakers do experience high levels of. 15.

(24) body sensations before a speech while some others do not. Unlike Behnke and Sawyer’s study (1994), which asked their audience to rate the speakers’ anxiety, this study was conducted through two well-established self-reporting scales (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998). One was a narrow-band version of the STAI (A-State) at the three stages (i.e. anticipation, confrontation, and release), and the other was a narrow-band anticipatory public speaking trait anxiety version. Contrary to physiological tests, the two scales directly measured the relationship between anxiety and speech performance, instead of the relationship between behavior and anxiety. With the STAI, it is not necessary for participants to think of the factors associated with anxiety themselves and to heavily rely on their background knowledge. In addition, the study was held in a formal English speech contest with junior high school students rather in imagined contexts. It provided a more concrete context for the arousal of anxiety than the imagined settings in the study of MacIntyre et al. (1997). 2.6 Stages of Public Speaking Anxiety Within a speech, anxiety is dynamic rather than static. In order to realize the distributions of the anxiety levels, researchers have identified some crucial stages during a public speech. Behnke and Sawyer (1999), for example, focused on three stages of “anticipatory public speaking,” that is, three specific periods before a speech. They are the moment when the speech assignment was announced, the moment for preparing the speech, and the moment before the speech began. They found most speakers experienced both the highest trait and state anxiety at the moment before they are going to give a speech, and second when the speech assignment was announced. Their research suggested that pedagogical strategies may aim at reducing the anxiety not only immediately before a speech but also when the speech assignment is announced. As for the whole process of a speech, there are other four. 16.

(25) stages worthy of observation (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998): one minute before the speech (anticipation), the first minute of the speech (confrontation), one minute before the end of the speech (adaptation), and one minute after the speech (release). 2.6.1 Physiological and psychological arousal patterns of public speaking anxiety Speaking of the patterns of the four stages of the whole process of a public speech, Behnke and Sawyer (1998) suggested there is a difference between physiological arousal patterns and psychological arousal patterns. Physiological arousal patterns are those which were measured through physiological evidence, such as heart rate patterns at the stages. Behnke and Sawyer (1998) concluded that “confrontation period” seems to the most “physiologically arousing” in many psychophysiological studies since speakers at the moment tend to face the audience with “a dramatic increase in heart rate” (p.163). Psychological arousal patterns, on the other hand, are those tested by psychological measurements. Behnke and Sawyer’s study (1998) has proven that “anticipatory period” is the most “psychologically arousing” since the speakers in their study showed the highest trait anxiety at the phase among the four periods. 2.6.2 Sensitization and habituation Recently, psychological arousal patterns have gained much more attention from the researchers than physiological arousal patterns in many studies (Behnke & Sawyer, 1999; Behnke & Sawyer, 2000; Witt & Behnke, 2006). That may be because for many speakers, what they believe they have felt is as important as what they really experience during a speech performance. In addition, researchers have also tried to identify differentiated patterns from the global psychological arousal pattern in order to feed the various needs of different speakers. Behnke and Sawyer (2001), for example, found two complementary psychological state anxiety patterns during the whole process of a public speaking: habituation and sensitization. In the habituation. 17.

(26) pattern, speakers show their highest anxiety at the anticipation stage and then descend their anxiety in the following three stages. Sensitization refers to the pattern in which speakers’ state anxiety ascends from the anticipation stage, climaxes at the confrontation stage, and then declines in the last two stages. These two patterns can be explained by the neural circuits Gray and McNaughton identified (cited in Lewis et al., 2007). There are three concepts involving in Gray’s theory, including a behavioral approach system (BAS), a behavior inhibition system (BIS), and the comparator (Lewis et al., 2007). During a public speech, the speech performance itself is viewed as a kind of threat or stimulus which provokes anxiety. The BAS guides the individual to actively approach the desired goal with strategies either by facing the threat or avoiding it (Behnke & Sawyer, 2001). The BIS, however, suppresses the individual’s motor behavior toward the desired goal with increased vigilance (Behnke & Sawyer, 2001). The comparator, on the other hand, is responsible for detecting the mismatch between the actual environment and the expectations of the individual, based on signs of punishment and reward (Behnke & Sawyer, 2001). The difference of the two patterns depends on the timing of the executions of the BIS and the BAS during the four stages of a speech (Behnke & Sawyer, 2001). In the habituation pattern, the speaker tends to overestimate the threat before giving a speech and then triggers the BIS at first, resulting in the speaker’s anxiety peaking at the anticipation stage. With the repeated exposure to the threat, once the comparator reevaluates the situations in actual environment and detects no new stimulus, the anxiety will then decline. Thus, the control will be shifted from BIS to the BAS later in the habituation pattern. In the sensitization pattern, however, the speaker tends to underestimate the threat with the BAS engaged in the first place, thus causing a relatively lower level of anxiety at the anticipation stage. Later, as the comparator. 18.

(27) discovers a higher level of threat than that expected by the speaker, the speaker’s anxiety will then increase and peak at the confrontation stage. As a result, the BAS will then be substituted by the BIS in the sensitization pattern. Some researchers found that the difference of the participants’ anxiety sensitivity and the strength of the stimuli may be the reasons for forming the two different patterns. Behnke and Sawyer (2001) found that speakers with the sensitization pattern showed higher levels of anxiety sensitivity and reacted more to the physical sensations of stress. They tended to experience a higher level of anxiety at the initial stages than those with the habituation pattern. Besides, a weak stimulus was found to be associated with formation of the habituation pattern while speakers confronting a strong stimulus were more probable to develop the sensitization pattern (Sawyer & Behnke, 2002). According to Sawyer and Behnke (2002), within a public speech, most native or ESL learners tended to experience the habituation pattern and to become gradually relaxed during a public speech. This may be because during the process of being trained to present speeches, most people are treated under a relatively supportive and friendly classroom atmosphere and eventually become adapted to the speaking situations (Behnke & Sawyer, 2001). Some speakers, however, might undergo the sensitization effect which hindered them from adjusting to the speech contexts (Sawyer & Behnke, 2002). Since the confrontation stage has been reported as the most physically anxiety-provoking, it is no wonder that these speakers tend to show their highest anxiety when they confront the audience at the first minute of the speech (Sawyer & Behnke, 2002). In addition, the overall anxiety levels of the speakers with the sensitization pattern were also found to be higher than those with the habituation pattern (Lewis et al., 2007; Sawyer & Behnke, 2002). To reduce speech anxiety, many researchers have tried to take advantage of the. 19.

(28) habituation process and to avoid the sensitization effect (Behnke & Sawyer 2004; Sawyer & Behnke, 2002). Preparation, for example, has been indicated as a useful means to help speakers lower their anxiety before presenting a speech (Lewis et al., 2007). In addition, skills-training, which has been implemented in many basic communication courses, was also found to facilitate anxiety reduction (Sawyer & Behnke, 2002). 2.6.3 Trait anxiety, sensitization, and habituation Lewis et al. (2007) found that different levels of trait anxiety could predict the habituation and sensitization patterns of the state anxiety. They divided their participants into an equal number of high and low anxious speakers based on their trait anxiety and then observed the state anxiety patterns of the two groups during the four stages of a public speech (anticipation, confrontation, adaptation, and release). They found that high-trait-anxious speakers tended to produce the habituation pattern, that is, to have their highest state anxiety at the anticipation stage and then to descend in the following stages. Low-trait-anxious speakers, however, tended to have the sensitization pattern. They were found to show nearly identical levels of anxiety during the first two stages and then to decline at the last two stages. Their explanations for the findings were as follows. That is, speakers with high trait anxiety were more self-focused and more likely affected by distractions of negative thoughts at the pre-speaking period. Thus, their anxiety peak at the anticipation stage tended to aversely influence their performance throughout the preparation process of a public speech. Otherwise, low-trait-anxious speakers were calmer and able to develop strategies to complete their speech assignments at the anticipation stage even though their anxiety still climaxed at the confrontation stage. This study replicated Lewis et al.’s study (2007), which examined how different levels of trait anxiety affected state anxiety narrow-banded for four different. 20.

(29) stages. Since “anticipatory period” has been reported as the most “psychologically arousing,” anticipatory trait anxiety was used in this study to predict the distributions of state anxiety among different stages. The two scales used in that study were adapted in this study. There are two advantages of using them. First, they are narrow-band rather than wide-band scales and can “ be used to improve the measurement precision of speech anxiety patterns” (Lewis et al., 2007, p.3). Second, the research process in the study makes it possible to learn about the patterns of state anxiety at different stages of a speech rather than the overall anxiety during the speech. The learners may get benefits from the patterns if some appropriate pedagogical strategies are provided after this research (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998). However, unlike Lewis et al.’s study (2007), there were three differences in this study. First, since this study was conducted through a formal speech contest in a junior high school, the time needed to finish the questionnaires should be controlled. As a result, only three phases were observed: anticipation, confrontation, and release. Second, besides the effect of levels of anticipatory trait anxiety, this researcher also wanted to know how gender difference could influence speakers’ psychological patterns of state anxiety at the three stages. Third, this study was a foreign language replication in Taiwan where students learn English as a foreign language rather than a native language. The results of this study might offer a different perspective for future researches to know more about the psychological patterns of public speaking anxiety. 2.7 Gender Difference in Patterns of Public Speaking Anxiety Gender difference is one of the factors examined in the researches on the psychological distributions of anxiety during a speech. Behnke and Sawyer (2000) examined gender difference at three moments before a speech: the moment when the speech assignment was announced, the moment during preparation, and the moment immediately before a speech. There were two interesting findings in the study. First,. 21.

(30) female and male speakers showed no difference in the quadratic v-shaped pattern of both public trait and state anxiety. That is, both female and male speakers’ highest anxiety appeared at the moment before they gave a speech, the second in the announcement stage, and the lowest in the preparation stage. Second, they found that female speakers showed higher levels of trait and state anxiety at all stages than males. The results suggested that females seem to be more susceptive to anxiety than males even though they react to it in the same psychological patterns. In fact, many studies on gender difference have shown females’ vulnerability to depression and anxiety. Nolen-Hoeksema (1987) indicated that women have much more tendency to show unipolar depression than men. Nolen-Hoeksema and Girgus (1994) suggested that females’ chance to get depressed is about twice that of males’ after the age of fifteen. Feingold’s study (1994) on gender difference in personality has revealed that female showed higher extraversion, anxiety, trust, and tender-mindedness (e.g., nurturance) than males. In Abu-Rabua’s research (2004), female students also displayed higher foreign language anxiety than male students. On the other hand, many researchers have tried to provide reasonable explanations for the gender difference. Some of the explanations also resulted from the gender difference on personality and ways of communication. Feingold (1994), for example, indicated that “males were found to be more assertive had slightly higher self-esteem than females” (p.429). Thus, it seems reasonable that females are found to be more frank and more willing to express their anxiety openly than males (Abu-Rabia, 2004). Furthermore, men seem to be shyer than women while women seem to be more apprehensive about public speaking than men (McCroskey, Simpson, & Richmond, 1982). In Nolen-Hoeksema’s study (1987), she proposed a response set explanation for sex differences in unipolar depression. She suggested that males and females differ in their ways to response to depressions. When depressed, men tend to. 22.

(31) do some distracting activities to keep themselves from indulging in bad moods again (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1987). Women, however, tend to be more ruminative over the causes of their depression and then to prolong their depressive symptoms (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1987). Even though gender difference has been examined in the stages before public speaking (Behnke & Sawyer, 2000), there are few researches which were focused on the whole process of a public speech. Lewis et al. (2007) examined the four stages of public speaking anxiety (i.e. anticipation, confrontation, adaptation, and release), but they did not include the factor of gender difference in their study. With this study, this researcher wanted to know if different genders would show differences in the patterns and magnitude of trait and state anxiety at different stages during a public speaking. 2.8 Summary This chapter includes many issues related to the topic of this study. First, the effects of anxiety are discussed. In fact, anxiety can be a consequence of language learning or a cause to influence performances. Besides, it can be both debilitating and facilitating based on the difficulty of the tasks. Second, public speaking anxiety is differentiated from several terms, such as communication apprehension, stage fright, and social anxiety. Actually, public speaking anxiety is almost identical with stage fright. It also refers to a kind of communication apprehension and belongs to a kind of social anxiety. Third, the definitions of state and trait anxiety and the conceptualization of the two concepts are presented. State anxiety refers to a temporary anxiety while trait anxiety refers to a long-term tendency to feel anxious. It is until 1966 that the two concepts were discriminated from each other. Fourth, anxiety can also be classified into wide-band anxiety and narrow-band anxiety. Some studies, for example, have examined anxiety according to the four narrow-banded stages: anticipation (one minute before the speech), confrontation (the first minute of. 23.

(32) the speech), adaptation (one minute before the end of the speech), and release (one minute after the speech) stages. On the other hand, other studies used the wide-band anxiety to test speakers’ overall anxiety during a public speech. Fifth, causes of public speaking anxiety are discussed based on different ways to examine anxiety. According to previous studies, there were three ways to measure anxiety: by behavioral tests, by the subjects’ self-report, and by physiological tests. This study used the subjects’ self-reports to observe their own anxiety instead of behavioral tests and physiological tests. Sixth, the review of stages of public speaking anxiety contains the definitions of various stages of public speaking anxiety, the difference between physiological and psychological arousal patterns of public speaking anxiety, the formation of the sensitization pattern and the habituation pattern, and the relationship among trait anxiety, sensitization, and habituation. In brief, this researcher replicated three of the four stages in Lewis et al.’s study. She hoped to know if there was any difference in the distribution of state anxiety as a function of anticipatory trait anxiety and gender difference at the anticipation, confrontation, and release stages. Finally, gender difference in patterns of public speaking anxiety is presented. Many studies have discovered that females tend to show more anxiety than males. This study aimed to find out if females tended to have higher levels of anxiety at all the three stages than males. Besides, female and male were expected to have the same pattern in the distribution of state anxiety at the three stages.. 24.

(33) CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY In this chapter, there are fifth sections. First, the two research questions are presented. Next, the background of the participants is provided, followed by an introduction of the two research instruments. In the last two sections, the data collection and analysis procedures are presented. 3.1 Research Questions Even though there were many studies about public speaking anxiety in history, this researcher found that in Taiwan there are few researches focused on this topic. This study replicated Lewis et al.’s study (2007), which examined the relationship between trait anxiety and state anxiety narrow-banded for various stages. The independent variables of this study were levels of anticipatory trait anxiety and gender difference while the dependent variable was the state anxiety narrow-banded for the three stages. This researcher wanted to know how levels of anticipatory trait anxiety affected the distributions of students’ state anxiety at different stages of a public speech. Moreover, this researcher also wanted to know if gender difference was one of the crucial factors which might cause different psychological state anxiety patterns among individuals. The research questions are as follows: RQ1. What is the relationship between levels of anticipatory trait anxiety and state anxiety narrow-banded for the three stages of public speaking: anticipation, confrontation, and release stages? RQ2. What is the relationship between gender difference and state anxiety narrow-banded for the three stages of public speaking: anticipation, confrontation, and release stages? 3.2 Participants The participants were 66 students (30 males, 36 females) who participated in a. 25.

(34) formal English speaking contest in a junior high school in northern Taiwan. They were EFL learners. Most of them have learned English since third grade in elementary school, and their experience of learning English was at least five years. After entering the junior high school, they took five periods of English classes every week. Either in their elementary schools or in the junior high school, students had many opportunities to give a speech on the stage or perform in the public in various classroom activities based on different teaching objectives. In fact, the contest was a preliminary contest used to select candidates for the regional English speech contest conducted by the Department of Education in New Taipei City Government each year. According to the rules of the regional English speech contest (Appendix A), schools with less than 20 classes had to nominate one contestant. Schools with 21 to sixty classes had to nominate two contestants. Schools containing 60 classes or above had to nominate three contestants. The school in this study was composed of 59 classes and had to select two candidates for the regional English speech contest this year. These two candidates would be chosen from the ones who won the first, second, and third places in the preliminary contest. The students who participated in the school contest were usually those whose English proficiency and oral ability were better than all the other students in their class. Through the recommendation of their teachers, they could attend the contest. In the school, there were 19 classes in the seventh grade, 20 classes in the eighth grade, and 20 classes in the ninth grade. According to the English speech contest rules set by the school (Appendix B), the limit of the number of the contestants in every class was two. Every class in the seventh and eighth grades had to nominate at least one student to join the contest while the ninth graders could choose to freely participate in the contest. In the end, the total of the contestants participating in the contest was 71. However, only 66 contestants completely finished the two scales. The exclusion of the. 26.

(35) five contestants included one contestant who merely filled the A-Trait scale, one contestant with missing cases in the A-Trait scale, and three contestants with missing cases in the A-State scale narrow-banded for the three stages. 3.3 Research Instruments There were two instruments in this study. One was the A-Trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (i.e. STAI, Spielberger et al., 1970), which was a narrow-band public speaking anticipatory trait anxiety version (Lewis et al., 2007). The other was the A-State scale adapted from the STAI, which was narrow-banded for three stages (Lewis et al., 2007). The STAI has been a commonly used measure of public speaking anxiety and consistently proven reliability and validity as speech anxiety measure in previous studies (Behnke & Sawyer, 1998; Behnke & Sawyer, 2001; Behnke & Sawyer, 2002; Behnke & Sawyer, 2004; Freeman et al., 1997; Lewis et al., 2007; Mladenka & Sawyer, 1998). In the present study, alpha reliability coefficient of the A-Trait scale narrow-banded for the anticipation stage was .928. Moreover, alpha reliability coefficients of the A-State scale narrow-banded for the anticipation, confrontation, and release stages were .914, .909, and .927 respectively. The two scales of the STAI respectively contained 20 similar Liker-type items. Items 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, and 20 should be reverse-scored. The A-Trait scale was used to measure the participants’ anticipatory trait anxiety by asking “how they would generally feel one minute before standing on the stage and giving a speech to the public” (Appendix C). The A-State scale tested participants’ state anxiety during the formal English speaking contest at three different stages by asking “how they felt one minute before giving a speech, how they felt in the first minute of the speech, and how they felt one minute after the speech”(Appendix E). The three narrow-banded stages were anticipation (one minute before the speech), confrontation (the first minute of the speech), and release (one minute after the speech). Since the. 27.

(36) participants were all junior high school students in Taiwan, the Chinese versions of the two scales were needed (Appendixes D & F). The two instruments were translated into English by this researcher and then double-checked by expert. 3.4 Data Collection Procedure This study contained two stages of data collection. First, a week before the contest, the participants filled out the A-Trait scale. Second, immediately after the contest, they had to complete the A-State scale narrow-banded for the three stages: anticipation, confrontation, and release. The following was the procedure of the speech contest. A week before the English speaking contest, all the participants were gathered. They had to draw lots to decide their order to give a speech. A week later, the participants gave a two-to-three-minute formal speech in the speech contest. The task of the contest was picture-description (Appendix B). Immediately before the speech, each contestant had to draw lots to decide on their topic of their picture. According to the rules set by the school, there were four topics for the seventh-grade contestants to choose from (Appendix G). For the eighth-grade and ninth-grade students, there were four other different topics (Appendix H). After deciding on their topic, they had 20 minutes to prepare for the speech. During preparation, they were allowed to bring dictionaries, pens, and a piece of paper which should be left aside during the speech. After their speech, they could prefer to stay in the back of the classroom as audience or to return to their class. In the contest, all the contestants were divided into two groups. The seventh and ninth graders were in one group, and the eighth graders were in the other group. The reason for such classification was because the number of the ninth-grade contestants was often far fewer than that of the seventh-grade and eighth-grade contestants. In addition, the number of the eighth-grade contestants was usually the largest. As a. 28.

(37) result, the seventh-grade and ninth-grade contestants were merged into one group. The two groups participated in the contest in two different classrooms, and there were two judges respectively for each group. 3.5 Data Analysis Procedure To answer the first research question, the patterns of the state anxiety narrow-banded for the three stages were analyzed based on two different levels of anticipatory trait anxiety: high-trait-anxious and low-trait-anxious speakers. The data analysis procedure needed was as follows. First, items 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, and 20 were reverse-scored. Second, the 20 items of the A-Trait scale were added up. Third, the participants were grouped into an equal number of high-trait-anxious and low-trait-anxious speakers according to the ascending order of the sum of the A-Trait scale at the median score. Fourth, based on the two groups, the 20 items of the A-State scale for the three narrow-banded stages were respectively be aggregated and averaged. Fifth, with the means and standard deviations of A-State scale during the three stages, two different patterns of the high-trait-anxious and low-trait-anxious groups were shown and compared. Sixth, to examine if trait anxiety predicted the distribution of the state anxiety narrow-banded for the three stages, a 3×2 factorial ANOVA was used. As for the second research question, the patterns of state anxiety during the three narrow-banded stages were observed based on gender difference. The data analysis procedure contained the following steps. First, items 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, and 20 were reverse-scored. Second, the means and standard deviations of A-State anxiety scale in each of the three stages were respectively computed based on different genders: males and females. Third, according to gender difference, the distribution of state anxiety at the three stages was shown and compared. Fourth, to check whether gender difference predicted the distribution of the state anxiety. 29.

(38) narrow-banded for the three stages, a 3×2 factorial ANOVA was used. Besides, in order to compare the difference between this study and Lewis et al.’s study, the overall means and standard deviations of the state anxiety narrow-banded for the three stages were computed. 3.6 Summary The following is the summary of the methodology of this study. As for the research questions, this study aimed to observe two kinds of relationship: One was the relationship between levels of anticipatory trait anxiety and state anxiety narrow-banded for the three milestones of public speaking: anticipation, confrontation, and release stages. The other was the relationship between gender difference and state anxiety narrow-banded for the three milestones of public speaking: anticipation, confrontation, and release stages. A total of 66 students participated in this study, including 30 males and 36 females. They were seventh to ninth graders. This study was conducted in a formal English speech contest in a junior high school in Taiwan. The contest was actually a preliminary contest which was used to select candidates for the regional English speech contest conducted by the Department of Education in New Taipei City Government each year. There were two research instruments in this study. One was the A-Trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (i.e. STAI, Spielberger et al., 1970), which was a narrow-band public speaking anticipatory trait anxiety version (Lewis et al., 2007). The other was the A-State scale adapted from the STAI, which was narrow-banded for three stages (Lewis et al., 2007). The data collection procedure of this study was as followed. First, a week before the contest, the participants filled out the A-Trait scale. Second, after the contest, they had to complete the A-State scale narrow-banded for the three stages. Finally, the data were analyzed to answer the two research questions. To answer the first research question, all the students were first divided into two groups: high-trait-anxious group and. 30.