Speechless in Bangkok : the relationship between students' communication apprehension and their motives for communicating with instructors

Abstract

Communication apprehension or CA is people’s anxiety related to oral communication. The significance of this problem may not be apparent in every society but it is predominant and best not underestimated. This study investigates CA in a school setting, specifically the relationship between students’ CA and their communication motives or CM, which refer to reasons students have for interacting with their instructors. These motives are identified as functional, relational, participation, sycophancy and excuse-making. The issue of grades is included to see whether it has an impact on CA and CM or vice versa. Research on CA in Thailand is scarce, and the available few reports that Thais are highly apprehensive in oral communication which may be attributable to a cultural characteristic of Thailand as a high context society. One of the main targets of this study is to find out if there is any improvement or development of a new perspective on CA levels of Thais. Research questions were posed in a manner that linked closely with the hypotheses. Data obtained through the use of the PRCA 24 and CMS 30 instruments were gathered from 393 students of Sriwattana Institute of International Business & Technology in Bangkok. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Chi-squares were employed to test the hypotheses and provide answers to the research questions. Findings reveal that when CA levels are high, motives are low. Contrary to the supposition of difference, high, moderate and low CA students reported similar use of motives. Consistent with the predictions on grade, all three CA groups generally consider grades to be of high importance, and the desire to acquire good grades does not lower high CA level or increase the use of communication motives. A striking feature of this study is the outcome of classifying respondents into their respective CA levels. Moderate CAs, not low nor high CAs, emerged as the largest group altering expected results and suggesting the possibility that Thais may not be that highly apprehensive to communicate particularly amongst themselves. Out of the five motives, relational has the highest frequency of use by all CA groups signifying Thai culture which places value on social harmony.