LEFKOE AND COGNITIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPIES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS IN THE IBADAN METROPOLIS, NIGERIA

Abstract

Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA), the fear of giving an oratory in public because of the expectation of being negatively evaluated, is a major hinderance to effective public speaking. Extant literature have shown that many secondary school adolescents exhibit PSA in the Ibadan Metropolis, Nigeria. Previous studies on PSA had been on prevalence and antecedents using survey, with little attention given to psychological interventions for managing PSA. This study, therefore, was designed to determine the effects of Lefkoe Therapy (LT) and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) in the management of PSA among secondary school adolescents in Ibadan, Nigeria. The moderating effects of gender and assertiveness skills were also examined. The Social Learning Theory served as the anchor, while the pretest – posttest control group quasi-experimental design, with a 3 x 2 x 2 factorial matrix was used. SouthWest Local Government Area (LGA) was purposively selected being one of the LGAs with high concentration of secondary schools in the Ibadan Metropolis. The simple random sampling technique was used to select three secondary schools in the LGA. The students were selected through a screening process based on their reported speech anxiety on the Personal Report of Confidence as a Speaker instrument (PRCS – α = 0.72) and those who scored below the norm of 30% were selected and randomly assigned into LT (40), CBT (40) and control (40) groups. The instruments used were McCroskey’s Personal Report of Communication Apprehension Scale (α = 0.78) and Assertiveness Inventory (α = 0.89). The treatment lasted 10 weeks. Data were analysed using Analysis of covariance at 0.05 level of significance. The participants’ age ranged between 14 and 23; males had a mean score of 60.10, while their female counterparts had a mean score of 55.83 respectively. There was a significant main effect of treatment on PSA among secondary school adolescents ((F(3; 116) = 29.74, partial η2 = .35). The participants exposed to LT obtained the lowest mean score (51.35), followed by CBT (53.65) and control (mean = 68.90) groups. There was a significant main effect of assertiveness skill on PSA (F(2, 117) = 10.88, partial η2 = .09). The participants with high assertiveness skill scored lower mean (47.73) on PSA than those with low assertiveness skill (62.53). There was no significant main effect of gender on PSA. There were no significant two-way interaction effects of treatment and gender, treatment and assertiveness skill as well as gender and assertiveness on PSA. The three-way interaction effect was not significant. Lefkoe and cognitive behaviour therapies reduced public speaking anxiety among secondary school adolescents, with Lefkoe therapy being more efficacious. Counselling and educational psychologists should adopt these strategies in the management of public speaking anxiety among secondary school adolescents.