Individual Conferences and the Public Speaking Class

This study examined the individual conferences created by using the online-assisted method of teaching the Public Speaking class. During the course of the semester, students completed online quizzes to assess their textbook comprehension and met individually with the instructor to prepare for the presentations in the online-assisted course. Students in the traditional course attended and participated in class without use of computers outside of class. The results revealed the online-assisted students were more satisfied with the class, felt more prepared in giving presentations, perceived they learned more, felt better concerning the instruction, and perceived better communication with the instructor than the traditional students. After a discussion of the findings, benefits that students felt are presented after which limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are given. Used properly, the Internet medium can help further students’ education.