Is it true just because I read it in a book? No! Here’s an inaccurate paragraph on speech anxiety

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on March 2, 2013 I had a post titled I read it in a book, so it must be true. Recently I was looking at the 2020 third edition of J. Dan Rothwell’s book, Practically Speaking. In Chapter 2 on Speech Anxiety there is a section on Pervasiveness of Speech Anxiety: A Common Experience beginning with the following paragraph on page 23 (it also is on page 19 in the 2017 second edition):

 

“Mark Twain once remarked, ‘There are two types of speakers; those who are nervous and those who are liars.’ Overstated perhaps, but fear of public speaking is widespread (Pull, 2012). A survey by Chapman University of 1,500 respondents put the fear factor at 62% (‘The Chapman University Survey,’ 2015). This same study also showed fear of public speaking as greater than fear of heights (61%), drowning (47%), flying (39%), and yes, zombies (18%). The fear of public speaking holds true for both face-to-face and web-based online speeches given to remote audiences (Campbell and Larson, 2012).”

 

On May 12, 2020 I blogged on Did Mark Twain really say there were just nervous speakers or liars? He didn’t – that quote first shows up decades after he died.

 

Professor Rothwell referred to public speaking being widespread - based on a 2012 article by Charles B. Pull in Current Opinion in Psychiatry for 2012 (Volume 25, Number 1 pages 25 to 38) titled Current Status of Knowledge on Public-speaking Anxiety. That article reviewed articles from just August 2008 to August 2011. It omitted one by A.M. Ruscio et al. in Psychological Medicine (November 2007 Volume 38, Number 1, pages 15 to 28) titled Social Fears and Social Phobia in the United States: Results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. I blogged about it on August 12, 2015 in a post titled There’s really no mystery about how common stage fright is and pointed out that result was just 21.2%.

 

And the blog post for the 2015 Chapman Survey of American Fears lists the sum for Very Afraid + Afraid. It says public speaking is ranked #26 at 28.4%, heights is ranked #28 at 27.4%, zombies is ranked #82 at 8.5%, but drowning is not even listed. (It is in the 2014 survey at 19.3%).  Professor Rothwell exaggerated by instead listing the sums for Very Afraid + Afraid + Slightly Afraid. 

 

Finally, the 2012 Campbell and Larson article in the Journal of Instructional Pedagogies titled Public speaking anxiety: comparing face-to-face and web-based speeches tells us:

 

“Of the group of 70 students, 65 responded to the question. Almost half of the students (45.7%) were more anxious about giving their speech face-to-face, and a little more than one third (34.3%) were more anxious about the web-based delivery.”

 

On September 6, 2022 I blogged about he we should Beware of surveys with small sample sizes, which have large margins of error. For a sample size n = 70, the margin is 11.7%. The difference between face-to-face and web-based is 11.4% - within the margin and not significant.

 

My cartoon was modified from one at OpenClipArt.