A Quantitative Study on Public Speaking Anxiety in Bengali Medium Schools in West Bengal

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the behavior modification techniques helps the students to reduce public speaking anxiety and enhancement in the Self-esteem. The eighty Students were selected purposively for the study on the basis of their Subjective Unit of Distress Scale (SUDS) developed by Wolpe (1990). The questionnaire Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety - eighty developed by McCroskey (2013) was adapted to determine the level of public speaking anxiety while holding the speech. Another instrument was Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) in order to measures global self-worth by measuring both positive and negative feelings about the self, before and after intervention. This is the study of eighty students of X standard, Bengali Medium School. The students were assessed pre intervention and intervened with Behaviour Modification techniques for the period of four weeks. The interventions used for the study were i) Public speaking high problem in the presence of similar groups ii) Public speaking moderate problem in the presence of similar groups iii) Public speaking low problem in the presence of low groups. The students SUDS, PRPSA-34 and RSE were reassessed after the period of four weeks interventions phase of how to manage their distress and results of the study indicate that the students experienced significantly less anxiety. The study reflected that the students experienced significantly less public speaking anxiety, decreased in their Subjective Unit of Distress Scale and increase in the self esteem. This shows that Behaviour Modification techniques are efficient in reducing public speaking anxiety.