Abstract:
This investigation was conducted to determine if the presence and use of videotape equipment in the speech classroom affects the performance of the student speaker.For many years colleges and some high schools across the country have been using television in the classroom as a teaching aid and, in some cases, as a substitute or addition to the teacher. As more and more schools purchase this equipment, and as the equipment itself becomes more compact and easier to use, it is only inevitable that the teacher of speech is going to see in videotape, a very satisfactory solution to the problem of student self-criticism. Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, formerly carried on a program of, taping each beginning speech student at the first of the semester and then again at the end to allow each student to see and judge his own improvement. The project was abandoned because of the increased number of students taking speech and the demands for the use of the equipment from other departments.l In effect, the videotape was being used as a teaching tool, much as the audio tape was used in the past, only now the student could see himself perform as well as hear.The use of videotape is not without drawbacks and problems, however. This writer was personally involved in an informal experiment to determine if a speech can be adequately criticized by means of videotape at the 1968 meeting of the Indiana Speech Association. A student from Wabash College was asked to give a short, informative speech. Before the session, two of the organization members were asked to serve as critics.- One would view the speech as it was actually being given and criticize it immediately afterward. This writer, who acted as the second critic, was not present during the original delivery of the speech or the first critique. A videotape of the speech was then viewed by the second critic, who also criticized the speech. The tape, of course, was stopped at intervals to allow the critic to comment. The general opinion of the group was that there were far too many variables in the experiment to reach a valid conclusion. Each critic concentrated on different speech skills and as the first critic had known the student previously, he therefore was familiar with the student's problems. Even though no decision was reached as to whether videotape alone could conceivably be used as a means of criticising students, several problems concerning the use of videotape equipment in the classroom were revealed. Among them were the young man's hair and glasses, which did not apparently present a barrier to communication when viewed live, but which seemed to hide his face and obstruct his eye contact when the speech was seen on tape. The speaker also had to try to handle his notes and a microphone which seriously encumbered his use of gestures. The student, who was an experienced speaker, was asked if the presence of the equipment caused him any difficulties. He reluctantly admitted that he had felt uncomfortable at first, but he had had some experience appearing before the camera prior to this session.Even a cursory review of the previous research on the subject reveals that even though the uses of videotape in the classroom have been explored extensively by educators in all fields, especially speech, the effect that the presence of this equipment has on the performance of the student, especially the beginning speaker, has received relatively little attention. It is this problem that this research hopes to explore, at least in part. The research was conducted under the hypothesis that the speaker's performance would not be affected by the presence of the camera, microphone and videotape machine in the classroom. The specific reaction tested for was the number of gestures per minute the speakers who were being taped used as compared with the number of gestures per minute used by speakers who were not being taped.