The goal of this research was to determine whether communication apprehension impacted reading comprehension in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students and to examine the impact of family socio-economic status. Many studies have demonstrated the negative relationship between communication apprehension and academic achievement, however, studies of elementary and middle school students have been conspicuously missing from this research. Findings of this study indicated that the levels of communication apprehension rose slightly as grade level increased. Results showed that females in the study had higher levels of communication apprehension than males. The study also found that those students receiving free and reduced lunch had slightly higher levels of communication apprehension. Finally, nonminority status students had higher levels of communication apprehension than minority students. A review of previous studies found that children, exposed to high language input from their parents, know more words than those who are exposed to lower levels of input. Researchers have found that students who do not talk much in the classroom are evaluated less positively by their teachers, achieve less on teacher-made and standardized tests, and develop less positive affect toward school in general. Results of this study suggest that effort should be made to identify communication anxiety in children. The iii development of an age and grade appropriate instrument is warranted for early identification.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-3470 |
| Date | 01 January 2012 |
| Creators | Davis, Tami Mullens |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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