THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL TONE ON AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SPEAKING (A QUANTITATIVE CASE STUDY OF GEORGIAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION)

Abstract

 In the modern world, maintaining attention, especially in the educational environment, is becoming more and more challenging for younger audiences. Listening to a one-hour lecture by a professor or watching a public speech video for more than 20 minutes makes it unbearable for the majority of undergraduates. There might be various reasons for that, such as the lack of general attention span, lack of interest in that particular subject, or the lack of discipline from the audience. However, the scope of the research is not the listener but the speaker. It is said that confidence is a mandatory attribute to gain audience attention, but hardly any research emphasizes the importance and crucial role of emotional tone in keeping the audience fully engaged. Therefore, the paper examines whether the emotional tone of a speaker impacts listeners. The study was conducted at a higher education institution in Georgia, and it used a quantitative research method. In order to measure the correlation between two variables, emotional tone and audience attention,  15 public speaking course students were asked to assess video-recorded speech samples using the rating scale and fill out a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire. The statistical tools used to measure the results included mean, median, mode, and standard deviation. Consequently, a positive and significant correlation was found between positive emotional expressiveness and audience attentiveness. As a result, the paper considers the value of awareness of emotional tone as one of the determinants in maintaining the audience’s full engagement in public speaking, especially in educational settings.

Keywords: Public speaking, Emotional tone, Audience engagement, Attention Span, Higher education