Communication apprehension and motivation as predictors of public speaking duration

Communication apprehension (CA) has attracted considerable attention in the research literature over the past fifteen years. The present study attempted to predict the duration of informative speeches using an interactive model employing CA scores and estimates of situational motivation. Results indicated that CA alone accounted for a significant but small proportion of variance in speech duration. However, a full regression model accounted for 37.41% of the variance in the duration of the speeches. Overall, the results indicated that the amount of time speaking was, in part, a function of the CA x motivation interaction.