Southern Speech Communication Journal
ISSN: 0361-8269 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsjc19
The relationship of three types of communication
apprehension to classroom achievement
Michael D. Scott & Lawrence R. Wheeless
To cite this article: Michael D. Scott & Lawrence R. Wheeless (1977) The relationship of
three types of communication apprehension to classroom achievement, Southern Speech
Communication Journal, 42:3, 246-255, DOI: 10.1080/10417947709372352
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10417947709372352
Published online: 01 Apr 2009.
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Date: 04 June 2016, At: 01:29
THE SOUTHERN SPEECH COMMUNICATION JOURNAL
42 (SPRING, 1977), 246-255
THE RELATIONSHIP OF THREE TYPES OF
COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION TO
CLASSROOM ACHIEVEMENT
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MICHAEL D. SCOTT AND LAWRENCE R. WHEELESS
This study was designed to assess the impact of oral, receiver,
and writing communication apprehension on classroom achievement in an interpersonal communication course, and to determine the relationships among these variables. Three hypotheses
and one research question were posited. Results indicated that
oral and receiver communication apprehension have a significant
and deleterious effect on student achievement. The results also
suggested that questions regarding the additive effects of oral,
receiver, and writing communication apprehension may be of
little consequence.
f ?{^ ommunication apprehension" has recently come to mean
' more than fear or anxiety about real or anticipated oral
communication with people. Wheeless has identified and
operationalized a type or dimension of apprehension for the
receiving function of communication.1 Similarly, Daly and Miller
report research suggesting that a type or dimension of apprehension also exists for the encoding of written messages.2
While the classroom effects of oral communication apprehension have been recently investigated, the study of classroom
Michael D. Scott (Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1974) is an
Assistant Professor in the Departments of Speech Communication and Educational Psychology at West Virginia University. Lawrence R. Wheeless
(Ph.D., Wayne State University, 1970) is an Associate Professor and Director
of Graduate Studies in the Department of Speech Communication at West
Virginia University.
1
Lawrence R. Wheeless, "An Investigation of Receiver Apprehension and
Social Context Dimensions of Communication Apprehension," The Speech
Teacher, 24 (1975), 261-68.
2
John A. Daly and Michael D. Miller, "The Empirical Development of
a Measure of Writing Apprehension," Research in the Teaching of English,
9 (1975a), 242-49.
246
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Three Types of Communication Apprehension
247
effects of receiver and writing apprehension is still in the seminal
research stage.3 Only one study has sought to assess the impact
of receiver apprehension on student achievement, and the
published literature contains only one report of research aimed
at discerning the effects of writing apprehension on academic
performance.4 Moreover, researchers have yet to investigate the
question whether oral, receiver, and writing apprehension may
have some cumulative effect on student achievement.
REVIEW OF RELEVANT RESEARCH
As it now stands, there are three strains of communication
apprehension research—specifically, studies focusing on the impact of oral communication apprehension, receiver apprehension, and writing apprehension. The following discussion briefly
reviews the findings of these studies.
Oral Communication Apprehension
Oral communication apprehension, a broadly-based fear or
anxiety about real or anticipated communication with another
person(s), appears to influence student achievement in a number
of ways. The most obvious effects of oral communication apprehension on student achievement involve instructional strategies
which require the highly apprehensive student to participate
orally; for example, in public speaking and small-group discussion. A number of studies have yielded results that indicate
3
James C. McCroskey and Janis F. Andersen, "The Relationship between
Communication Apprehension and Academic Achievement among College
Students," Human Communication Research, 3 (1976), 73-81; James C.
McCroskey and John A. Daly, "Teachers' Expectancies of the Communication Apprehensive Child in the Classroom," Human Communication Research, 3 (1976), 67-72; Michael D. Scott and Lawrence R. Wheeless, "Communication Apprehension, Student Attitudes and Levels of Satisfaction,"
Western Speech Communication (in press).
4
Lawrence R. Wheeless and Michael D. Scott, "The Nature, Measurement, and Potential Effects of Receiver Apprehension" (Paper presented
at the International Communication Association Convention, Portland,
Oregon, April, 1976); John A. Daly and Michael D. Miller, "Further Studies
on Writing Apprehension: SAT Scores, Success Expectations, Willingness
to Take Advanced Writing Courses, and Sex Differences," Research in the
Teaching of English, 9 (1975b), 250-56.
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The Southern Speech Communication Journal
highly apprehensive students perform substantially below the
norm when required to participate in such activities.5 These
studies also suggest that such students would avoid such activities
altogether if given a choice.
High degrees of oral communication apprehension also appear
to affect students in less obvious ways. Among other things, research suggests that highly apprehensive students have lower
grade-point averages and achieve less on standardized measures
of achievement than do non-apprehensive students.8 Moreover,
Scott and Wheeless, and Hurt, Preiss, and Davis report research
suggesting that highly apprehensive students generally have less
favorable attitudes toward school than non-appreherisive
students.7 Thus, to conclude that oral communication apprehension has a pervasive influence on classroom achievement, does
not appear unreasonable.
Receiver Apprehension
Unlike oral communication apprehension, receiver apprehension concerns the degree to which individuals are fearful about
misinterpreting, inadequately processing, and/or being unable to
adjust psychologically to messages. Receiver apprehension, which
is assessed with a sixteen-item, self-report measure, is not conr
ceptually tied to any one particular facet of information processing. In the one study aimed at assessing the impact of receiver apprehension on student achievement, Wheeless and Scott
5
See, for example: Paul R. Hamilton, "The Effect of Risk Proneness
on Small Group Interaction, Communication Apprehension, and Self-Disclosure," Master's thesis, Illinois State Univ. 1972; James C. McCroskey, and
Michael E. Sheahan, "Seating Position and Participation: An Alternative
Explanation" (Paper presented at the International Communication Association Convention, Portland, Oregon, April, 1976); Gail A. Sorensen
and James C. McCroskey, "The Prediction of Interaction Behavior in
Small Groups," Communication Monographs (in press).
6
McCroskey and Anderson, "The Relationship between Communication
Apprehension and Achievement among College Students."
7
Scott and Wheeless, "Communication Apprehension, Student Attitudes,
and Levels of Satisfaction"; H. Thomas Hurt, Raymond Preiss, and Bren
Davis, "The Effects of Communication Apprehension of Middle School
Children on Sociometric Choice, Affective and Cognitive Learning" (Paper
presented at the International Communication Association Convention,
Portland, Oregon, April, 1976).
Three Types of Communication Apprehension
249
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found that students who were highly apprehensive about
receiving information did not perform as well on objective
measures of achievement and outside class projects as did students
exhibiting low levels of receiver apprehension.8 While causal
inferences cannot be safely drawn from this single study, receiver
apprehension and student achievement did appear to be meaningfully related.
Writing Apprehension
Writing apprehension concerns the degree to which individuals are fearful or anxious about encoding written messages,
as well as their predispositions toward writing activities. Like
oral and receiver communication apprehension, writing apprehension is also assessed via a self-report measure. Daly and
Miller investigated the relationships among writing apprehension, SAT scores, and success-expectations in writing courses.9
While causality could not be inferred in each instance, Daly and
Miller found that students who reported low levels of writing
apprehension scored significantly higher on the verbal dimension
of the SAT than did students who reported high levels of writing
apprehension. In addition, these researchers found that students
reporting high levels of writing apprehension expected to be
less successful in their writing endeavors than did students reporting low levels of writing apprehension. As was the case with
receiver apprehension, writing apprehension also appears to be
meaningfully related to student achievement.
RATIONALE, HYPOTHESES, AND RESEARCH QUESTION
The preceding studies have been primarily concerned with
assessing the relationships between a particular "type" of communication apprehension and student achievement or other
variables associated with student achievement. In addition, many
of these studies fall under the rubric of ex post facto research;
that is, research in which measures of the particular type of
8
Wheeless and Scott, "The Nature, Measurement and Potential Effects
of Receiver Apprehension."
9
Daly and Miller, "Further Studies on Writing Apprehension: SAT
Scores, Success Expectations, Willingness to Take Advanced Writing Courses,
and Sex Differences."
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The Southern Speech Communication Journal
apprehension under investigation were administered after subjects
had completed the dependent measures. Although each type of
communication apprehension has been found to be meaningfully
related to student achievement (albeit ex post facto, or otherwise),
the relationships among the preceding types of communication
apprehension and student achievement have yet to be investigated. Obviously, more information needs to be gathered
about the individual effects of the preceding types of communication apprehension, including the variance in student
achievement which can be attributed to them. Therefore, this
study was initially concerned with testing the following directional hypotheses:
H x : Students who are highly apprehensive about oral communication will achieve significantly less than students
who are not apprehensive about oral communication.
H2: Students who are highly apprehensive about receiving
communication will achieve significantly less than
students who are not apprehensive about receiving
communication.
H3: Students who are highly apprehensive about encoding
written communication will achieve significantly less
than students who are not apprehensive about encoding
written communication.
A second major aim of this study was to examine the relationships among the three types of apprehension in relation to
the criterion of student achievement. While it might be argued
that these three types of communication apprehension have a
cumulative impact on student achievement, the lack of previous
research in this regard suggested that directional predictions
were not warranted. As a result, the following research question
was posited:
Qj: What is the nature of the relationships among oral,
receiver, and writing apprehension, and student achievement?
METHOD
Procedures and Sampling
Students enrolled in mass lecture sections of a universitylevel communication course were administered measures of oral
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Three Types of Communication Apprehension
251
communication apprehension, apprehension about receiving
communication, and apprehension about writing. Oral and
writing apprehension tests were administered on the first day
of class. The receiver apprehension test was administered before
mid-term. At the completion of the semester, achievement scores
were obtained for students enrolled in laboratory sections concerned with dyadic, interpersonal communication. The three
data sets were merged to produce 194 complete data observations
(265 5s had at least partial data reported). Attrition was due to
student absences during one of the times data were collected, and
failure to match data sets occasioned by errors in student
identification numbers reported on IBM answer sheets.
Measurement
Oral communication apprehension was assessed with a 25item version of the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA).10 This measure displayed the following descriptive
characteristics: split-half reliability = .92; mean = 72.30; and
standard deviation = 15.49. Receiver apprehension was assessed
with the Revised Receiver Apprehension Test (RRAT),11 a 16item self-report measure which displayed the following
characteristics: split-half reliability = .89; mean = 43.64;
standard deviation = 13.42. Finally, writing apprehension was
assessed with the Writing Apprehension Test (WAT)12 which,
in this study, displayed the following characteristics: split-half
reliability = .94; mean = 55.09; standard deviation = 13.42.
Achievement was operationalized as examination average and
average score on projects which involved oral communication
as well as writing and receiver-oriented behaviors. Three
criterion-referenced examinations were given on specified
cognitive objectives for the course. The multiple choice (5-option)
examinations consisted of two 50-item examinations and one
25-item examination. The first examination (50-item) displayed
the following descriptive statistics: reliability (KR-20) = .86;
10
James C. McCroskey and Lawrence R. Wheeless, An Introduction to
Human Communication (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1976), 85-86.
11
Wheeless and Scott, "The Nature, Measurement, and Potential Effects
of Receiver Apprehension."
12
Daly and Miller, "The Empirical Development of a Measure of Writing
Apprehension."
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The Southern Speech Communication Journal
mean = 39.47; standard deviation = 6.83; standard error of
measurement = 2.74. The second examination (50-item) displayed the following characteristics: reliability (KR-20) = .82;
mean = 35.18; standard deviation = 6.61; standard error =
3.12. The third examination (25-item) displayed the following
descriptive statistics: reliability (KR-20) = .70; mean = 20.15;
standard deviation = 3.21; standard error = 1.91. All examination items were developed with discriminant-item analyses during
the previous semester. The examination average was derived by
weighting the 50-item tests twice as heavily as the 25-item test,
which was converted (via linear transformation) to a compatible
fifty-unit scale. The resulting examination average had the
following characteristics: mean = 38.42; standard deviation =
5.78; range = 7.20-48.80. Projects were graded on the following
criteria: not attempted = 0, attempted = 1, completed as
assigned = 2, and completed as assigned, plus extra, relevant
project report on the topic = 3. For ease of analysis and interpretation, project averages (0-3 point scale) were multiplied by
the constant of 16.6667 (linear transformation) in order to transform them to the same metric as the examination average. The
resulting project average had the following characteristics:
mean = 41.91; standard deviation = 6.90; range = 14.34-50.00.
Design and Statistical Analysis
Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to
test all hypotheses at the .05 level of statistical significance. For
the first three hypotheses, high and low levels of PRCA, RRAT,
and WAT served as the classification/independent variables in
three, one-way analyses, and the two achievement scores were
treated as the criterion/dependent variables. High- and lowapprehensives (PRCA, RRAT, and WAT) were operationalized
as one standard deviation above and below the mean, respectively. For the research question, a three-way multivariate
analysis of variance was attempted (High vs. Low PRCA X High
vs. Low RRAT X High vs. Low WAT). Again, achievement
means were the dependent variables (examination and project
averages). A Pearson product-moment correlation between
criterion/dependent variables was ascertained in order to check
the validity of assumptions underlying MANOVA in regard to
Three Types of Communication Apprehension
253
dependent variables. Roy's maximum root criterion and generalized F-distribution were used to determine significance in all
MANOVA's.
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RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION
The correlation coefficient between the two criterion/
dependent variables measuring achievement (examination
average, project average) was significant (r = .49). Thus, assumptions regarding the relatedness of dependent variables in
MANOVA were met.
The MANOVA of achievement scores for high and low Oral
Communication Apprehensives (PRCA) revealed a significant
difference on the transformed F-ratio (F = 5.22, 2/69 d.f., p
< .008). The mean of the canonical variate representing achievement was significantly lower for high-communication apprehensives (X = 1.01, n = 46) than for low-communication apprehensives ^X~= 1.11, n = 26), (if = 1 - \ = .13). The 24 percent classified as high apprehensives was well above expected
norms of previous research.13 Examination of the canonical
variate of achievement revealed that project average and examination average were correlated with the variate at .88 and .84,
respectively. Likewise, both univariate analyses indicated
significant hypothesized differences, with the project average
producing the major difference. The first hypothesis was
supported.
The MANOVA of achievement scores for high and low Receiver Apprehensives (RRAT) revealed a significant difference
on the transformed F-ratio (F = 3.61, 2/49 d.f., p < .03). The
mean of the canonical variate representing achievement was
significantly lower for high-receiver apprehensives (X = 1.29,
n = 29) than for low-receiver apprehensives (X~ = 1.40, n =
23) (JJ2 = 1 -X = .13). While 78 5s were classified into high
and low apprehension categories, the merging of data sets resulted in 51 Ss with complete data (78 of 265 5s = 29 percent,
which approximates expectations from previous research). This
indicates that S attrition was not due to receiver apprehension
levels. Examination of the canonical variate of achievement re13
James C. McCroskey, "Measures of Communication-Bound Anxiety,"
Speech Monographs, 37 (1970), 269-77.
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vealed that project average and examination average were
correlated with the variate at .85 and .62 levels, respectively.
Likewise, the univariate analyses indicated significant, hypothesized differences, with the project average producing the major
difference. The second hypothesis was supported.
The MANOVA of achievement scores for high and low
writing apprehensives revealed no significant difference (F =
0.59, 2/64 d.f., p > .05). No significant multivariate effect or
univariate effects on achievement were observed to result between
high and low writing apprehension categories. Because the 19
percent classified as high apprehensives were slightly above
previous norms, failure to find significant differences was not
due to subject attrition. The third hypothesis was not supported.
The attempted exploration of the research question was unsuccessful. The three-way MANOVA (High-Low PRCA X HighLow RRAT X High-Low WAT) was able to classify a total of
only 16 Ss into the relevant cell conditions. Two conditions had
no Ss and three conditions had only one S each. Only 8 percent
of the 5s (16 of 192) were high and/or low across the three
types of apprehension (8 cells). Ninety-two percent were
moderate in apprehension on at least one of the three measures—
a datum which effectively prevented the classification scheme
needed to test additivity. It should be noted that a three-way
analysis including moderate levels would not solve this problem,
since the 8 cells common to both analyses would still contain
insufficient N's. Moreover, the lack of significance on writing
apprehension probably precluded this variable from having an
additive effect in relation to the other forms of apprehension.
These observations point, however, to a meaningful interpretation. The relatively few persons displaying categorical
combinations of the three types of high- and low-apprehension
minimize the importance of examining the additive effects of
the three in combination. Because so few people fit the categorical combinations (8 percent), oral, receiver, and writing
communication apprehension are probably not additive for most
people (92 percent).
CONCLUSIONS
This study was concerned with the individual effects of three
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Three Types of Communication Apprehension
255
types of communication apprehension on student achievement,
as well as the relationships among these variables. Consistent
with previous research, oral and receiver communication apprehension were found to have a deleterious effect on student achievement. Unlike Daly and Miller (1975b), however, the present
investigators did not observe such an effect for writing apprehension. This finding, coupled with research suggesting that
writing apprehension is significantly related to student attitudes
and levels of satisfaction with writing activities,14 implies that
the writing apprehension instrument may be more of a measure
of predispositions toward writing in classes where writing is a
secondary concern, than a measure of anxiety or fear.
While oral, receiver, and writing apprehension were not
found to have any cumulative impact on student achievement,
the findings of this study may have implications for instruction.
Clearly, oral and receiver communication apprehension have an
undesirable influence on student achievement, regardless of
whether the classroom environment is performance oriented.
Teachers, in their attempts to assist students, need to assess the
degree to which students in their classes are apprehensive about
orally communicating or receiving information. Such assessment
would facilitate the use of instructional strategies which are less
likely to elicit the fears of communicatively anxious students.
Treatment of the problem of communication apprehension itself
would be most desirable.
Finally, we need to point out that researchers should begin
to investigate the classroom impact of "communication apprehension" in controlled experiments. Much of the research, including that reported here, has not controlled for mediating
variables such as self-esteem, prior academic success, intelligence,
or student attitudes toward the content being taught. Obviously,
reciprocal causality between variables like "communication apprehension," intelligence, and the like is at issue here. Consequently, until such variables are controlled for in "true" experimental studies, the most that can be said about "communication apprehension" and student achievement is that the two
appear to be meaningfully and negatively related.
14
Scott and Wheeless, "Communication Apprehension, Student Attitudes,
and Levels of Satisfaction."