Options provide for better treatment of communication apprehension
Understanding and treating communication apprehension has been a priority for researchers for nearly five decades. A number of approaches have been tried, and all of them work for at least some people. But, none of them work for everyone, probably because the causes of apprehension vary from individual to individual.

Karen Kangas Dwyer, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, attempted to sort through the problem of treating communication apprehension, at least in classroom settings. The report of her research appears in the January 2000 issue of Communication Education.

Dwyer concentrated on the “firing order,” the thoughts and feelings people have as they realize that they are feeling apprehensive. Some people may be aware of their thoughts first, while others may be aware of their feelings, either on an emotional level or on a physical level. Dwyer reasoned that the first thing of which people are aware is primary in treating their apprehension.

Dwyer devised a test to measure how students were aware of their apprehension, and she also created a course that was designed to assist students who were apprehensive. In the course, students were provided a technique that had been shown by previous research to help people to reduce apprehension based on the causes the students had identified first. Once they had mastered that technique, the course focused on learning a second and a third technique, based on the causes the students had identified second and third in the test.

Statistical analyses compared reductions in measured levels of communication apprehension between students in the special sections and students enrolled in regular sections of a public speaking course. While all students in the study enjoyed significantly reduced apprehension levels by the end of the course, students in the special sections reported significantly greater reductions in their levels of communication apprehension than did the students in the traditional public speaking sections.
While the study was limited by being conducted at a single university, with students who had self-selected to enter the special sections, and there was no “placebo” condition to insure that the findings were completely attributable to the treatment, Dwyer concluded that this study’s findings were encouraging ones in the ongoing quest to assist people in overcoming their fears of communicating.

Dwyer, K. K. (2000). The multidimensional model: Teaching students to self-manage high communication apprehension by self-selecting treatments. Communication Education, 49, 72-81.