Communication Anxiety: Strategies to Overcome High Levels of Trait Communication Anxiety

Running head: COMMUNICATION ANXIETY
COMMUNICATION ANXIETY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1COMMUNICATION ANXIETY
Question 1
As per the Personal Report of Communication Anxiety (PRCA), acquired from
McCroskey (1982), my score for communication anxiety is 107, which indicates that I am in
possession of high levels of trait communication anxiety (CA). upon personal evaluation and
reflection, I was genuinely surprised at scoring such an unexpectedly high score since despite
significant levels of nervousness, I am generally enthusiastic to participate in group discussion
and engage actively in stating my personal opinion or ideas. The individual scoring for separate
sections of the PRCA test suggests that I gained an equal score of 18 for each category of
‘Meetings’, ‘Interpersonal’, ‘Group Discussion’ and ‘Public Speaking’. Further, reflecting and
assessing individual questions indicated that while I may encounter certain levels of anxiety,
agitation, tension and physiological implications of the same, my genuine to involve myself in
group discussion can be considered as a major strength or protective feature which enables me to
reduce my anxiety to states of relaxation and fearlessness during meetings or group
conversations. The PRCA scoring also suggests that if left unchecked the effects of
communication anxiety on my body in the form of tension or rigidness may aggravate to serious
implications of jumbling of words and forgetfulness. Hence, the PRCA tool motivated me further
to reflect on my scores and the skills of focus and energy which I may employ to improve my
present levels of communication anxiety.
Question 2
To further improve my existing skills of communication and speech along with for the
purpose of alleviating my present high score of communication anxiety, I will attempt to follow