Addressing Public Speaking Anxiety with an AI Speech Coach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58459/icce.2024.4955Abstract
Public speaking anxiety (PSA) can hinder academic performance when students face challenges engaging in class discussions, delivering fluent presentations, and undertaking oral examinations. A primary reason for the prevalence of PSA is students' perceived lack of speaking skills. Speech coaching has been found to be an effective way of enhancing public speaking skills but its effects on PSA reduction need further investigation. In this paper, we report our experiments to evaluate the impact of utilizing an AI speech coach in reducing students' anxiety, improving their self-perceived competence, and increasing performance in public speaking tasks. A mixed-method approach combining qualitative analysis of participants' experiences with the AI speech coach and quantitative measures of anxiety levels and speaking performance improvements was utilized. Results from participants' pre- and post- public speaking anxiety scores showed an average of 25.2% reduction in the anxiety levels and 60.5% increase in speaker speech competency. Statistical metrics and personalized feedback given by the speech coach allow participants to monitor their speech and identify areas for improvement which are essential for self-improvement efforts. These findings can inform educators and students on the potential use of digital speech coaches to address PSA while providing the latter with a personalized platform for practicing their speech delivery.