OpenOPAF: An Open Source Multimodal System for Automated Feedback for Oral Presentations

This study explored the factors affecting oral presentation skills among higher-level female students in Pishin City, Balochistan, with a particular focus on identifying challenges and suggesting improvement strategies. The research recognized that oral presentations are crucial for enhancing communication, confidence, and critical thinking among students. However, many learners struggle with anxiety, lack of preparation, linguistic barriers, and insufficient background knowledge, which collectively affect their performance. Guided by these concerns, the study aimed to determine the factors influencing oral presentation skills, identify difficulties encountered by students, and propose effective solutions for improvement. Moreover, quantitative, descriptive research design was used, and data were collected through a survey questionnaire distributed to 60 students from three institutions: the University of Balochistan Sub-Campus Pishin, Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University Sub-Campus Pishin, and Government Girls Degree College Pishin. The study employed a five-point Likert scale to measure variables related to background knowledge, psychological, linguistic, and preparation factors. We applied multiple regression technique for estimation of our results. The reliability of the instrument was confirmed through Cronbach’s Alpha (α = .859), indicating strong internal consistency. Furthermore, the findings revealed that, although background knowledge, linguistic, and psychological factors (motivation and anxiety) influence performance, they did not have a statistically significant effect on students’ oral presentation skills (p > 0.05). However, preparation emerged as the strongest predictor, with a beta value of .350, indicating that planning, organizing ideas, practicing, and using visual aids substantially improve students’ presentation outcomes. The descriptive results further showed that 33.3% of students struggled to understand assigned topics, while 40% faced difficulties with pronunciation. Some students reported anxiety when addressing the audience or responding to questions, but most denied lacking confidence. The study concluded that preparation is the most critical factor influencing students’ oral presentation skills, while linguistic, psychological, and background factors are less impactful. It recommended enhancing students’ exposure to practice opportunities, integrating oral communication training into the curriculum, and developing confidence-building strategies. Ultimately, fostering a motivating learning environment and focusing on preparation can significantly strengthen students’ ability to deliver effective and confident oral presentations at the higher education level.

Oral presentations have become pivotal in recent learning. Students must communicate their work or experiments to colleagues and lecturers through scientific protocols. In many cases, it was detected that students often experienced difficulties making oral presentations, resulting in irritation in critical and constructive class discussions. This service aims to conduct presenting with impact training to train students' oral presentations using lecture and discussion methods, exercises and peer-reviews, and oral presentations. Participants involved as many as 16 people. As a result, there was an increase in the participants' oral presentation skills in terms of content accuracy, effective communication, and clarity of speech. However, it still needs to improve various indicators to characterize oral presentation skills in various conditions. Presentation training should be a regular agenda to equip students with the latest oral presentation instruments to strengthen their professional skill profile as prospective teachers.

Online learning has become popular globally in every field of education as a result of advances in information and communication technology despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Online learning can be done synchronously and asynchronously. Based on this explanation, the purpose of this study was to analyze and compare synchronous and asynchronous online learning on students' oral presentation skills. This research method is an experiment with a quasi-experimental design. Two classes were selected as the sample for this study using a purposive sampling technique. With the provisions of one class as experimental class 1 by treating students with asynchronous online learning, while the experimental class 2 learning is carried out synchronously online. The research instrument used was a performance test, in which students made oral presentations. Analysis of research data using SPSS with the stages of normality test, homogeneity test, and t test. The results of the study showed that there was a difference in the average student learning outcomes, namely oral presentation skills and synchronous and asynchronous online learning processes. Based on the average difference, it shows that students are better at making oral presentations when learning is carried out asynchronously. Based on the results of this research, it can be concluded that online learning can be used as an alternative for the learning process, especially asynchronously, especially in relation to oral presentations.

Oral presentation skills are a highly valued core competency that pre-employment students and graduates should acquire prior to entering the competitive employment sector. However, studies and reports have demonstrated a widening gap between graduates’ proficiency in oral presentations and the industry’s demands. Graduates’ oral presentation performance was reported to be unsatisfactory and workplace presentations are viewed as intimidating by many graduates. These issues necessitate a needs analysis to develop a Speech Assistant Tool (SAT) that can assist students in improving their oral presentation skills. A descriptive research design and a cross-sectional survey research were utilised. A questionnaire consisting of four (4) sections was used to analyse the students’ needs. The questionnaire was distributed via Google Forms to randomly-selected students from two public universities in Malaysia. A total of 179 responses were attained and were subjected to data cleaning, which revealed a total of 147 usable responses. A descriptive analysis was conducted to understand the students’ views on all language skills and their current proficiency in technological skills. A t-test was conducted to examine if there is a significant difference in the needed oral presentation skills, concepts, and learning strategies for the development of SAT between male and female students. The t-test results reported no significant difference between the male and female students. The findings, therefore, proved that students from different universities are experiencing similar issues in oral presentations which necessitate the SAT.

Oral presentation skill is an asset for graduates. A graduate with good oral presentation skills has a better chance in career advancement and promotion rather than one who does not. Thus, it is vital for university students to have exposure to oral communication strategies for them to become good presenters. The purpose of this study was to identify the communication strategies used by undergraduate students while delivering oral presentations in an oral communication skills course. The strategies used were mapped against the grades they obtained for the course to gauge the strategies used by students who scored an A (good presenters) versus those who scored a B (average presenters). Presenting to an audience may generate anxiety and concern that the presentation might not be delivered effectively. Good presenters have found ways to overcome or cope with this concern. Thus, the Oral Communication Strategies Inventory (OCSI) developed by Nakatani (Mod Lang J 90:151–168, 2006) was used to access strategies that the students used for coping while delivering their oral presentations. The OCS inventory included eight categories of strategies for coping while speaking and seven categories of strategies for coping while listening. However, for the purpose of this paper, only speaking strategies were analyzed. The respondents were 100 engineering students enrolled in a communication skills course. Results of the data analysis revealed that the good presenters employed more oral communication strategies than the average presenters. The better students had more frequently used social affective, fluency-oriented, and nonverbal strategies for coping with speaking problems. The average students, on the other hand, do utilize social affective and nonverbal strategies but on a much lesser degree. The findings suggest that average presenters should be made aware of the mentioned skills and be accustomed to them in order to enhance their oral presentation skills. As such, introducing the oral communication strategies to the students could help them improve their oral communication delivery.

The impact of an innovative instructional intervention on the acquisition of oral presentation skills in higher education

ABSTRACTThe purpose of the present study was twofold: (a) it examined the relationship between peer-rated likeability and peer-rated oral presentation skills of 96 student presenters enrolled in a science communication course, and (b) it investigated the relationship between student raters’ severity in rating presenters’ likeability and their severity in evaluating presenters’ skills. Students delivered an academic presentation and then changed roles to rate their peers’ performance and likeability, using an 18-item oral presentation scale and a 10-item likeability questionnaire, respectively. Many-facet Rasch measurement was used to validate the data, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the research questions. At an aggregate level, likeability explained 19.5% of the variance of the oral presentation ratings and 8.4% of rater severity. At an item-level, multiple cause-effect relationships were detected, with the likeability items explaining 6–30% of the variance in the oral presentation items. Implications of the study are discussed.

This research aims to analyze the issue of delivering an oral presentation and the undergraduates’ perceptions. The study intends to examine ESL undergraduates’ perceptions of oral presentation performances and to view any statistical correlation between the undergraduates’ assessments of oral presentations and their perceptions of presenting their performances. This study was conducted with 242 undergraduates at Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia. A quantitative approach was implemented to attain the aims of the study. The findings indicate that ESL undergraduates possess a positive perception of delivering oral presentations. Furthermore, it revealed a weak positive relationship between the ESL undergraduates’ perception and their oral presentation assessments. This study is significant as the issue of understanding the importance of the ESL undergraduates’ perception will help lecturers as well as undergraduates in developing strategies that could be fruitful to enhance the undergraduates’ oral presentation skills. Keywords: Assessments; ESL undergraduates; oral presentation; perceptions.

Self-efficacy is the driving force that makes people pursue a goal and overcome obstacles. Through numerous studies, students with a high sense of efficacy have the capacity to accept more challenging tasks, have higher abilities to organize their time, increase persistence in the face of obstacles, and exhibit lower anxiety levels. In this study, pre-service teachers have oral presentation anxiety, which overcomes their feelings by practicing self-efficacy such as intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness and self-enhancement through self-reflections after oral presentations. Data for this study were obtained through self-reflection and interviews administered to 13 pre-service teachers at an Institute of Teacher Education to investigate their self-efficacy practices to overcome oral performance anxiety in presenting the topics and analyzed thematically. Self-reflection is obtained through Schoology Learning Management System (LMS), written self-reflection and interviews. The pre-service teachers practiced self-efficacy that is self-enhancement – therefore, this information contributes to the new knowledge following earlier research. The findings revealed that pre-service teachers' self-reflection depicted their self-efficacy practice such as intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness and self-enhancement. The study's practical implications show that self-reflection has a positive impact on the pre-service teachers' oral presentation skills. This significantly contributes to turning the pre-service teachers into independent, life-long learners. &nbsp

For many students it is important that they develop good oral presentation skills since the ability to demonstrate oral communication competence is highly valued in many professions while there has also been a rise in the use of oral presentations in university classrooms. Despite this, there is doubt cast over whether it is possible to support the development of the required skills and address the fear that many students experience regarding oral presentations as part of the same intervention. Furthermore, despite being a widely researched topic, there is much in the area of communication apprehension that remains unclear. In order to determine suitable interventions, research is required to identify pedagogy that might successfully help apprehensive presenters develop their skills and confidence. This paper reports on an intervention which seeks to help students develop oral presentation skills and at the same time help apprehensive presenters reduce their fear of delivering oral presentations. The intervention, which takes place with foundation level undergraduate Accounting students, is underpinned by problem-based learning and contributing student pedagogy and focuses on the development of self-efficacy which has been identified to be a key area for the reduction of oral communication apprehension in public speaking contexts. The paper will introduce the concept of communication apprehension in oral presentations and discuss causes and possible interventions. It details the progress that has been made in the study which uses qualitative data in the form of research conversations and student reflections. Such an approach is taken in order to gain insights into the “lived experiences” of students, which has been absent in much of the previous research conducted in the area.

The mining industry in Brazil, despite contributing to economic growth, is one of the human activities that negatively impacts the environment. This situation can be contextualized in discussions of several curricular chemistry topics. One way in which science, technology, society, and environmental issues can be discussed in classes is through case studies. This article reports on three interrupted case studies, based on research articles, which were developed and implemented in a Scientific Communication Course offered to first-year undergraduate Chemistry students at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. During two sessions of this course, students, divided in groups, developed hypotheses, chose sampling points and equipment for instrumental analyses, and evaluated data provided in the case studies. Results from a Descending Hierarchical Classification Analysis of oral presentations, performed on IRAMUTEQ software, and from a quiz containing 11 true or false statements (response rate of 79%) provide evidence for the effectiveness of the case studies for conceptual understanding of different topics in chemistry, such as heavy metals, sediments, and principles of instrumental chemical analysis, and for the development of communication and oral presentation skills.

This paper aims at presenting the specifics of designing oral presentations for university students. Oral presentations are becoming an important part of language teaching, especially in the university environment. Teaching students to design effective oral presentations presupposes two goals, namely, enabling students to function successfully in the future professional surrounding, and preparing them for their possible further academic career. For both directions, the author of this text, an ESP lecturer and syllabus designer, concludes from her own teaching experience that teaching presentations is a necessity if students are to perform well both in professional and academic settings. Since oral presentations involve multi-skills, a carefully planned and constructed guideline will help develop students' receptiveness to oral presentations. By making students aware of basic points, types, characteristics and styles of scientific and technical communication, the paper is to serve as a starting point in an attempt to make them expand and perfect their oral presentation skills. In a pilot study a conceptual framework has been used to illustrate our starting point. It has been examined the importance of designing an effective oral presentations at the university level. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n19p468

Multimodal Learning is happening in different contexts, where different technologies are utilized. In such contexts, different modalities are used by learners in very unstructured ways. These modalities include video, audio, motion, eye tracking, to mention but a few. However, effective applications of Multimodal Learning Analytics remain challenging. Enabling educational technologies are underpinned by various pedagogical models that are designed to provide educational values of technology. Nevertheless, the link between Multimodal Learning Analytics and informal learning pedagogy is not very well established in the literature. Hence, this chapter aims at bridging the gap between multimodal learning analytics research concepts and approaches from one side and key informal learning pedagogical approaches such as self-directed learning and learning theories such as behaviorism and cognitivism from the other side. Establishing this link is expected to pave the ground for insightful and pedagogically informed learning analytics across multiple contexts. In addition, further explanations on what Multimodal learning analytics techniques and challenges are discussed to highlight the key concerns of MMLA applications.KeywordsMultimodal learning analyticsMultimodal dataPedagogyLearning process

This study aims to investigate the factors affecting oral presentation skills of undergraduate-learners of English that influence their academic performance which potentially can affect professional career. The study has used quantitative instrument as questionnaire partially adopted from McCroskey (1982) for data collection among 100 undergraduate-participants on factors affecting oral communication skills at one Public Sector University. Purposive sampling method was used since participants were selected on specific criteria of only first year engineering undergraduates. The data were analysed through SPSS, v.20 for obtaining percentage, mean, median, standard deviation, and standard error of mean to be measured. The findings revealed that oral presentation skills as the most problematic for engineering undergraduates. The results also revealed that the several factors affected engineering undergraduates’ oral presentations.

Oral presentation is one of the most important transversal competences for the professional career of Electrical Engineers. To develop and assess this competence, scoring rubrics are useful academic tools. The main purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the learning and assessment of oral presentation skills of future Electrical Engineers by using a scoring rubric as a teaching resource. A pilot experiment was carried out in the 2011/2012 academic year in a course in the ninth semester of Electrical Engineering studies with 64 students. In order to acquire the oral competence, students had to present a marketing plan for an industrial electrical project in front of an audience. Feedback was collected in meetings held with teachers and students after the presentations. As a result, the need to review the rubric was detected, in order to make its use easier. The rubric’s design was improved. In the 2012/2013 academic year, 86 students participated in a new experiment using the improved rubric in the same subject. Intra-rater consistency was shown by the scale’s reliability, measured with Cronbach’s alpha. Regarding inter-rater consistency, two procedures were used: holistic and analytic. The holistic procedure revealed a positive and relatively high correlation between the global scores given by each of the two raters. The analytic procedure showed an acceptable level of inter-rater consensus. Through a questionnaire, quantitative data were collected reflecting students’ satisfaction with the use of the improved scoring rubric. The results reveal the rubric promotes students’ learning by providing them with a clear orientation to improve their performance on current academic assignments and in future professional situations. So, the analyses show that the proposed rubric is valid, reliable and, suitable to teach and assess oral presentations in a simulated professional scenario for Electrical Engineers.