A study of the effects of spiritual commitment and intervention on communication apprehension

This study examined the effects of spiritual commitment and intervention on communication apprehension (CA). An integrated quantitative and qualitative treatment was used to determine whether or not a spiritual intervention and aspects of commitment to spiritual activities like prayer, church attendance, and Scripture reading would help students in an introductory speech course lower their self-reports of CA. Results from a pretest-posttest control group experiment and a case study were analyzed in order to examine the effectiveness of the spiritual intervention and the relationship between spiritual commitment and CA.; Participants were recruited from first year speech courses at a private Christian liberal arts college in the northwest. A total of 107 students completed the Registrar's Report (which described the specifically Christian background of the population), the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension-24 (an instrument developed to measure CA levels), a Short Background Information Sheet, and a Spiritual Commitment Scale.; The qualitative results indicated that students believed they experienced lower levels of CA when they prayed and when they thought about passages of Scripture. In addition, the quantitative results showed a positive relationship between student scores on the PRCA-24 and their responses to statements that measured levels of spiritual commitment. An ANOVA and t-tests showed that the intervention did not produce significant effects. The summary presents practical suggestions for CA counselors and speech teachers and recommends further investigation of the relationship between spirituality and CA.