Virtualized Speech Practice for the College Classroom

For at least 20 years, Virtual Reality (VR) environments have been created and deployed as a tool to help treat, assess, and manage the anxiety many people associate with public speaking. However, these studies have been conducted primarily in controlled environments in either a clinical or a research lab setting. In this paper we describe an adventure into the wild— our experience designing and installing a virtual reality audience environment into a university public speaking laboratory for use in practice of speeches that were classroom assignments for undergraduate students. In particular, we report on system design, how the system was incorporated into a standard university course, and how practice in front of a virtual audience affected student performance on a speech given in front of their class.