Speech anxiety of junior teachers

This research evaluates the level of speech anxiety, which may be a problem in junior teachers, as well as making recommendations for the teachers who have speech anxiety.Level of speech anxiety in junior teachers has been evaluated by use of a Speech Anxiety Scale, formed by the author, which is important to reveal proposals for eliminating the anxiety.This thesis has been carried out to apply and improve the Speech Anxiety Scale, which I have created for junior teachers, to understand the validity and reliability of the scale, and to evaluate the level of speech anxiety in junior teachers. Period of applying the scale was achieved with 607 students from 10 different departments of Sakarya University Faculty of Education including Turkish Language, Science, Mathematics, Social Sciences, English Language, Pre-school Education, Computer Technologies, Primary School Teaching and Mentally Handicapped Teaching. The students were chosen from the first and forth year classes. Structure validity as the study of validity, internal consistency and material analysis as the study of reliability have been used in the research. Higher rates of speech anxiety have been determined in 19-20 year-old junior teachers than the ones at the age of 21 or older, in the first year students than the last year students, and in the students from lower socio-economic level.According to these findings, Speech Anxiety Scale can be described as a valid and reliable measuring tool which can be used in educational studies. The results of our analysis has showed that new researches to find methods and strategies to minimize the speech anxiety level of students may be carried out.The students must be instructed of the fact that speaking in front of a population is the most important point of their professional life, and the ones who have high levels of anxiety must be referred to psychological support.Key words: Speech anxiety, Validity, Reliability.