International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies

June 2014, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 105-116

ISSN: 2333-6021 (Print), 2333-603X (Online)
Copyright © The Author(s). 2014. All Rights Reserved.
Published by American Research Institute for Policy Development

The Role of Gender in Influencing Public Speaking Anxiety

Ahmed Gaibani 1 and Fadil Elmenfi 2

Abstract

This study investigates the role of gender in influencing public speaking anxiety.
Questionnaire survey was administered to the samples of the study. Technique of
correlation and descriptive analysis will be further applied to the data collected to
determine the relationship between gender and public speaking anxiety. This study
could serve as a guide to identify the effects of gender differences on public
speaking anxiety and provide necessary advice on how to design a way of coping
with or overcoming public speaking anxiety.

Keywords: across culture, communication, English Language competence, gender,

postgraduate students, speaking anxiety

1. Introduction

Anxiety is a state of uncomfortable emotion where danger is perceived, and

the victim has a powerless feeling with the expression of tension in anticipation of
danger. In the classification of anxiety, Scovel (1978) refer to ‘trait anxiety’ as a rapid
permanent behavior or feeling to be anxious and this is considered to be part of
personality. Spielberger (1983) refers to the second classification as ‘state anxiety’
which is explained to be apprehension encountered by the victim at a specific time
period as a stimulus to a situation which is definite.

1Department of English, Omar Al-Mukhtar University, Derna, Libya.

2P. O. Box 82, Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Omar Al-Mukhtar University,
Derna, Libya. Tel: 218-91-836-0743. E-mail: fadil.elmenfi@gmail.com
106 International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies, Vol. 2(2), June 2014

Ellis (1994) refers to the third classification as ‘situation-specific anxiety’

which is associated with apprehension that stands out for particular phenomenon and
situations.

Gardner and MacIntyre (1994) explain the idea behind apprehension

experienced as often related to a particular situation where the second language in
which the speaker is not fully competent is to be used in public speaking.

For some years now researches have been directed towards public speaking
anxiety. Public speaking anxiety is usually associated with fear among different
categories of people in any society (Gibson, Gruner, Hanna, Smythe& Hayes, 1980).
In addition, “public speaking anxiety represents a cluster of evaluative feelings about
speech making” (Daly, Vangelisti, Neel, & Cavanaugh, 1989, p. 40) in which case
speakers who are very anxious do not experience positive feelings related to the
context of public speaking. For several years back, researchers in communication have
tried to examine the explanation encompassing the psychological and physiological
parts of public speaking anxiety in order to proffer considerable remedy that may
lessen the adverse influence of anxiety for public speakers.

Speaking before a group or public has been a long standing issue in the
communication and language arena. Students tried to avoid speaking in public because
of embarrassment, shaky voices, rapid heartbeat, feel discomfort, inferiority complex
and low self-respect (Behnke et al., 1978; Clements & Turpin, 1996). According to
Krannich (2004) delivering speech, presentations in class and before public have been
an important dilemma faced by students. Some researchers regard it as something
peculiar to audience and public speaking context (Beatty et al., 1978), if possible
shielding pubic communication (McCroskey& Beatty, 1984); its consequence may vary
across several processes or phases of speech preparation, delivery, and completion
(Behnke & Sawyer, 2001).

Public speaking anxiety is a dilemma faced by the populace, but students in

particular. McCroskey (1977) reported that invariably twenty percent of students are
faced with public speaking anxiety. To elucidate further, he documented that an
individual level of fear of anxiety is correlated with either real or proposed
communication with another individual or persons.
Gaibani & Elmenfi 107

Other likely factor affecting the public speaking anxiety on oral presentation,
group discussion or proposal defense is gender differences. Gender differences will be
one area of focus in this study as there is likelihood that it is not clearly true that
gender differences constitute to the level of public speaking anxiety.

2. Method

A basic approach to carrying out research is the formulation of research

design in accordance with the objective of the study. Several scholars have
underscored the importance of research design to the success of any scientific
research study.

For example, Kumar (2011), and Salkind, (2009), have laid emphasis on taking
time to select who will participate in the research project and the procedure for
selecting them. Also a study design that is well laid out serves to guide future
researchers and make it possible to replicate and verify the process and outcome of
the study. A study design is an overview of the study the process and the elements
involved which includes the population of interest to the study, the sample size,
sampling procedure, the data collection procedure and the instrument selected for the
exercise. As stated above, the study adopts the quantitative approach with survey as
the research method. The choice is informed by the fact that quantitative approach
provides the researcher the opportunity to measure social phenomenon, like speaking
anxiety, from a detached position and with minimal bias. Generalization of the
outcome is also possible through careful and systematic selection of a representative
sample through sampling procedure. Sampling is considered absolutely central to
ensuring that the research project has external validity. By this, the findings of the
study can be applied more widely beyond the particular project. This is possible
because you have taken every precaution to make sure that the people you have
surveyed, or the material you have selected to analyse, are representative of the group
of people or the material you are primarily interested in. Given the objective of this
study which is to determine the causes of speaking anxiety in relation to English
language competence,gender andage of the respondents, the quantitative approach is
considered the best approach.
108 International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies, Vol. 2(2), June 2014

2.1 Gender And Its Influencing In Public Speaking Anxiety

The significance role of gender in the control of speaking anxiety has

remained the most controversial as far as previous studies that have beamed their
research light in this direction is concerned. Intrarapraset (2000) pinpoint that there is
a linear relationship between gender and speaking anxiety. To elucidate more, Behnke
and Sawyer (2001) documented that female displayed higher anxiety based on
Gender- based study. In contrast, Matsuda and Gobel (2004); and Wang (2010) found
out that gender does not have a significant effect on the overall anxiety, while Levitt
(1980) in his study stated that male students felt a higher level of anxiety when they
perceive their spoken anxiety than that of others, whereas such relationship was not
observed among the females. Mejias et al. (1991) discovered in their own study that
females are more prone to speaking anxiety than males.

In the same pursuit, Ayu Rita & Nadhia Dalila (2008) in their study on anxiety
and speaking English as a second language among male and female Business studies
students in Universiti Industri, Selangor; an attempt to identify the potential sources
and causes of anxiety as related to the students’ affective needs and their needs in
higher institutions of learning posed a research question that asked if gender
differences have an impact towards the level of anxiety of students in UNISEL, and
was answered with a qualitative research approach, through open-ended interview and
content analysis of newspaper, magazine and journal reports. The results showed that
female students experienced more anxiety than male students while speaking in class.
Female students were more anxious than male students when expected to speak in
English language which is a foreign language to them; both genders experienced
nervousness and panic when asked to speak publicly without being pre-informed and
both never felt sure of themselves when asked to speak in class. Female students
exercise lower self-confidence because of their interest in the friends who might be
judging them, and male students are found to be experiencing less anxiety when it
comes to volunteering answers in class. On the overall findings, it was concluded that
female students are more anxious when compared to their male counter parts.

The effect of gender in the experience of speaking anxiety has been seen to
be gender differences in the anxiety experience, taking subjects form ten different
Arab culturally subjective; stressing the fact that the cultural background of the
speaker determines the dispositional characters in the control of speaking anxiety.
Gaibani & Elmenfi 109

In stating the significant role played by culture in public speaking encounter,

Toth, (2011) stated that cultural differences encompasses gender, socio economic
status, and ethnicity, with an illustrating example of a certain culture where the voices
of their women are not valued. Meaning that female student form such cultural
background will not be comfortable while engaging in public speaking, most
pathetically when she has been told that her views about issues are naturally
subliminal, and of no worth or value, thus contribute to her experience of speaking
anxiety.

Yiamsawat, (2004) in their study to investigate the effect of countries

consisting of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Oman, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan,
Palestine, and Iraq reported that females had a higher mean anxiety score more than
their male counterparts across the ten countries, with a well-felt difference in 7 out of
the 10 sampling population. In this respect, the cause of the gender difference was
traced to the effect of gender roles and sex-typing in their socialization process;
showing that while female college students in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Oman,
Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon have their anxiety significantly higher than the male
counterparts, females in Palestine, Jordan and Iraq showed no significant gender
difference, and thus concluded that the prediction of the study that gender influences
the experience of public speaking anxiety is aligning and consistent with many of the
other previous studies.

From a perception of health disorderliness, however in relationship with

anxiety, Neuman, (2007). in a study to investigate if gender differences is linked to
anxiety and its association across culture, reported that women are found to be of
higher anxiety levels than men, with a consistent and uniform results across
respondents studied from Australia, South Korea, Japan, England, and the United
States, thus stating that socio-demographic variables do not interact in the relationship
between gender and anxiety, and concluded that even across a variety of culture,
women are found to be of higher anxiety than men; a relationship that is unconnected
with age, education level, and marital status.
110 International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies, Vol. 2(2), June 2014

Mohammadi, (2013) in a work centered on investigating the effect of gender

in foreign language anxiety among the Iranians related that among the affective
variables that are related to language learning, especially the experience of anxiety in
foreign language learning, gender, either being experimented in a matched-gender and
mixed gender classrooms as the study suggested, and the study of its relationship with
speaking anxiety. That study conducted among 96 respondents, all of whom were
Iranians found out that mixed-gender classrooms are considered anxiety-provoking
because of the presence of the opposite gender. It was discovered to be significantly
responsible for the amount of the language anxiety experience among the Iranian
learners.

In the same vein, Kumar, (2011) studied the relationship between gender and
the foreign language classroom anxiety among the Iranian students, and having
acknowledged the multiple nature of the foreign language anxiety, insinuated a
prediction that gender plays a significant role in the classroom experience of foreign
language learning, and subsequently reported that Iranian female are of higher anxiety
than their male counterparts, therefore concluded that gender played a significant role
in the experience of classroom anxiety, though contradicting Meihua and Jackson
(2008) which reported that foreign language anxiety is positively related with both
male and female students. Tianjian (2010) using a sample of first –year non-English
majors at Guizhou College of finance and Economics in China as participants, found
that speaking anxiety does not have any significant influence with gender but rather
depend on the level of groups. These conflicting findings as regards the influence of
gender in the experience of speaking anxiety necessitate this study’s interest in that
direction, most especially with respect to postgraduate English language students,
whose level of English language exposure is expected to be gender balanced.

3. Descriptive Statistics

The descriptive provides the summary of statistics such as the minimum and
maximum values, mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis in relation to each
of the variable. This information is provided in the result’s table 4.6 below.
Gaibani & Elmenfi 111

3. 1 Result of Descriptive Statistics

Skewness Kurtosis
Std. Error Std. Error
Gender 0.23 0.46
Age 0.23 0.46
Total English
0.23 0.46
Lang. Competence
Total Speaking Anxiety 0.33 0.46

Valid (listwise)

From the above table, gender consists of male (1) and female (2). Since
gender is a discrete variable their means, standard deviation etc may not be all that
important (Silvina Montrul, 2012). Age group range from “below 25 years”
represented by 1 as the minimum and from 45-54 years as the maximum represented
by 4. Their mean and standard deviation are respectively 2.05 and 0.73. The standard
deviation indicates the amount by which measurement in a set varies from the average
for the set. The respective skewness is positive implying that scores cluster to the left
hand side of the graph at low values and the kurtosis for age indicates positive sign
implying that the distribution demonstrate to be peaked, clustered at the center and
have long thin tails. The associated standard error determines how accurate the
measurement is in an estimate. Low standard error is preferable to high one.

The items for English language competence are 10 in number. The scores for
each variable range from 1 to 5 representing “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”
The total scores for each respondents on all the 10 items added together are
represented under the variable named as “Total English language competence
(TELC)”. This variable, Total English language has the minimum and maximum
scores equal to19.0 and 38.0 respectively among the whole respondents. Also, the
mean or average scores for all the respondents are calculated and divided by the
number of respondents to get the average or mean scores for the whole students. The
standard deviation indicates the amount by which measurement in a set varies from
the average for the set. Thus the mean scores for the whole students on the 10 items
of English language competence and the standard deviation are 28.60 and 4.62
respectively.
112 International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies, Vol. 2(2), June 2014

The value of skewness provides an indication of the symmetry of the

distribution of scores on the graph while kortosis gives information about the
“peakness” of the distribution of scores on the chart or graph. According to Silvina
Montrul, (2012), positive skewness values shows that scores clusters at the low values,
to the left hand side of the graph while the negative value of skewness indicate that
scores cluster at the high end of right hand side of the graph. With regards to
kurtosis, positive kurtosis indicate that the distribution of scores is peaked, (cluster at
center) with thin long tails. Negative value of kurtosis indicates a distribution that is
flat.
From the result table, the value of skewness turned out to be negative (-0.55)
indicating that the scores are clustered at the high end, to the right of the graph. The
value of kurtosis for total English language competence indicates positive sign
implying that the distribution demonstrate to be peaked, clustered at the center and
have long thin tails. It is observed that the value of standard error was 0.23 and 0.46
for the skewness and kurtosis respectively.

The items for speaking anxiety are 15 in number. The scores for each variable
range from 1 to 5 representing “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” The total
scores for each respondents on all the 15 items added together are represented under
the variable named as “Total Speaking Anxiety (TSA)”. This variable, Total Speaking
Anxiety has the minimum and maximum scores equal to27.0 and 63.0 respectively
among the whole respondents. Also, the mean or average scores for all the
respondents are calculated and divided by the number of respondents to get the
average or mean scores for the whole students. The standard deviation indicates the
amount by which measurement in a set varies from the average for the set. Thus the
mean scores for the whole students on the 15 items of “Total Speaking Anxiety” and
the standard deviation are 55.47 and 10.58 respectively. The value of skewness for
“Total Speaking Anxiety” turned out to be negative (-1.77). According to Silvina
Montrul, (2012), this indicates that the scores are clustered to the right of the graph,
at the high end. The kurtosis for “Total Speaking Anxiety” also indicates positive sign
implying that the distribution of scores for the variable “Total Speaking Anxiety”
demonstrate to be peaked, and the scores are clustered at the center showing thin long
tails. The value of standard error was 0.33 and 0.46 for the skewness and kurtosis
respectively.
Gaibani & Elmenfi 113

4. Correlation between Gender and Public Speaking Anxiety

In order to investigate the effects of gender differences among the students

on the public speaking anxiety, this study undertakes correlation between the
variables. The table 4.7 below presents the results of such relationship between the
gender and public speaking anxiety.

4.1 Correlation Result between Gender and Speaking Anxiety

Dependent Variable Independent variable

Total Speaking Anxiety Gender
Pearson Correlation 0.131
Sig. (2-tailed) 0.176
No of Respondents 108

From the table above, the value of Pearson correlation is positive which
implies that the total speaking anxiety as dependent variable move in the same
direction with gender (dependent variable). The value of Pearson correlation is also
shown to be 0.13 implying that there is small correlation between the two variables. In
addition, the results indicate that r = 0.13, n=108, p> 0.05. Since, p=0.18 in the result
is greater than 0.05% it means that gender has no significant impact on the total
speaking anxiety. In order word, there is no correlation between the two variables.
Therefore, the hypothesis that gender differences have significant effect on public
speaking anxiety is rejected.

5. Discussion

This study addresses the research questions relating to the role played by
English gender in influencing the occurrence of public speaking anxiety among the
postgraduate students attending the intensive English language program at the
University Utara Malaysia. In order to pursue this, a total number of 108 students (for
the combined three semesters) who attended the program were examined through the
questionnaire. Correlation is undertaken to verify the research question of “What are
the effects of gender differences among the students on the public speaking anxiety?”
114 International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies, Vol. 2(2), June 2014

Findings reveal that though gender has positive relationship with the public
speaking anxiety among the study, however, no significant impact of gender on public
speaking anxiety is found. This implies that being male or female has not constituted
to student having anxiety in speaking. This results support that of Matsuda and Gobel
(2004) who found that gender does not have a significant effect on the overall anxiety.
The likely reason for the non-significant effect of gender on speaking anxiety may be
associated to the uneven distribution of the number of female and male represented
in the sample. For example, the number of female sample was just 40 compare to
male sample of 68 in the current study. Previous studies which have obtained similar
results as that of the current study include Matsuda and Gobel (2004); and Wang
(2010). These studies found that there was no significant difference in the speaking
anxiety with respect to gender. However, the result of the current study contradict
those obtained by Abdel-Khalek and Alansari (2004); Behnke and Sawyer (2009);
Fakhri (2012); Intrarapraset (2000); McCroskey, Gudykunst, and Nishida (1985);
Mejias et al. (1991); and Tasee (2009).These latter studies obtained significant
relationship between the two variables.

6. Conclusion

It can be concluded that there are significant factors responsible for the causes
of anxiety among the postgraduate students who attended intensive English language
program at University Utara, Malaysia.

Significant number of respondents has indicated that they experience speaking

anxiety for a wide range of reasons which made them to be more fearful, confused,
trembling, feel very tense, feel very rigid, make their heart beat fast, make them
nervous, make them make mistakes and make them perform poorer when delivering
speech, attending interview or during class room presentation. Furthermore, students
have identified that they found great difficulty in speaking English language even
though some of them understand it. Some have expressed that they understood but
could not speak English language so they had anxiety while others have signified that
their speaking ability was very poor that it made them to entertain anxiety for fear of
making mistake. Evidently, the current results suggested that student with weak skills
and who lacks competences in English language are more liable to entertain anxiety as
compare to those who have good skills and competence in English language.
Gaibani & Elmenfi 115

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