Abstract

• The main aim of the study was to investigate the intervention practices to reduce public speaking anxiety of high school students from Pyin Oo Lwin Township. This study was divided into two parts (Study I and Study II). For Study I, the sample consists of 460 Grade 9 students (222 males and 238 females) from four Basic Education High Schools and three Basic Education High Schools (Branch) of Pyin Oo Lwin Township in 2019-2020 Academic Year and 66 participants (30 males and 36 females) from selected school as Study II. Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) (Mc Croskey, 2013), Self-Consciousness Scale- Revised (SCS-R) (Scheier & Carver, 2013) and Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) were used as instrument. According to the result, there was a significant positive correlation (r= 0.45, p<0.001) between self-focused attention and public speaking anxiety and also there was a significant negative correlation (r=-0.34, p<0.001) between self-esteem and public speaking anxiety. The result showed that 26.4% of public speaking anxiety can be explained by self-focused attention and self-esteem. And then, the result also revealed that the students’ self-focused attention and public speaking anxiety after first intervention were significantly lower than before first intervention. Besides, students’ self-esteem after second intervention was significantly higher than before second intervention and students’ public speaking anxiety after second intervention was decrease due to the effectiveness of intervention practices or increase self-esteem. Finally, there was a significant difference among the mean value of public speaking anxiety across interventions (p<0.001). The results of the study highlighted all intervention activities were taken in this study were very effective for reducing public speaking anxiety of high school students.