Thesis supervisor: Attila Szabó
Location of studies (in Hungarian): ELTE, Doctoral School of Psychology Abbreviation of location of studies: PDI
Description of the research topic:
Oral presentation is a common form of assessment in the Higher Education. For many students, this practice could be very stressful. They are high stress-reactive students who perform poorer than others, due to high-anxiety and not because of poor or mediocre preparation. The proposed study-programme 1) would test the psychophysiological stress in response to a real life (in-class) oral-presentation in consenting university students by monitoring their heart-rate and/or ECG and obtaining subjective feedback about their experience. Then, after selecting high-reactive students, as based on the previous test phase (point 1), the research 2) will assess the benefits of pre-recording oral presentations in a closed environment (by the student alone) on academic performance in contrast to the traditional in-class presentations; 3) the subjective experience of public and privately prepared (video-taped) verbal presentations will be scrutinized in context of trait/state anxiety and level of preparation. A fourth major study will use the experience sampling method to compare the stress and anxiety in high stress-reactive students who have to do a live oral presentation in the classroom in contrast to those who only record their presentations. Finally, the study will use an intervention programme in its fifth wave, using self-talk and imagery, in context of videotaped presentations, to help the highly anxious students to gain self-confidence and courage to repeat their anxiety-void video-taped performance in front of a live audience in the classroom with minimal discomfort (a healthy level of anxiety that facilitates performance). Self-talk and imagery were used successfully in sport-performance enhancement, so it is hypothesized that students disadvantaged by public-speech anxiety in education could be helped with these methods to overcome their oral-exam anxiety, by relying on their non-pressured previous good performance, similarly to the sport-training versus sport-competition situations. The results of this study are expected to help students who are disadvantaged in their academic performance for a psychological reason to overcome their mental barrier and to give a true account of their knowledge and understanding during oral academic exams. The intervention program could help students behind their education, in careers that need group-verbal communication and/or public speech.
Required language skills: english Number of students who can be accepted: 1
Deadline for application: 2017-04-20
2024. IV. 17. ODT ülés Az ODT következő ülésére 2024. június 14-én, pénteken 10.00 órakor kerül sor a Semmelweis Egyetem Szenátusi termében (Bp. Üllői út 26. I. emelet).
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