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Assessing public speaking fear with the short form of the Personal Report of Confidence as a Speaker scale: confirmatory factor analyses among a French-speaking community sample

Authors Heeren A, Ceschi G, Valentiner DP, Dethier V, Philippot P

Received 22 January 2013

Accepted for publication 18 February 2013

Published 3 May 2013 Volume 2013:9 Pages 609—618

DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S43097

Checked for plagiarism Yes

Review by Single anonymous peer review

Peer reviewer comments 2



Alexandre Heeren,1,2 Grazia Ceschi,3 David P Valentiner,4 Vincent Dethier,1 Pierre Philippot1

1Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; 2National Fund for Scientific Research, Brussels, Belgium; 3Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; 4Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA


Background: The main aim of this study was to assess the reliability and structural validity of the French version of the 12-item version of the Personal Report of Confidence as Speaker (PRCS), one of the most promising measurements of public speaking fear.
Methods: A total of 611 French-speaking volunteers were administered the French versions of the short PRCS, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale, as well as the Trait version of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory-II, which assess the level of anxious and depressive symptoms, respectively.
Results: Regarding its structural validity, confirmatory factor analyses indicated a single-factor solution, as implied by the original version. Good scale reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86) was observed. The item discrimination analysis suggested that all the items contribute to the overall scale score reliability. The French version of the short PRCS showed significant correlations with the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (r = 0.522), the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale (r = 0.414), the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (r = 0.516), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (r = 0.361).
Conclusion: The French version of the short PRCS is a reliable and valid measure for the evaluation of the fear of public speaking among a French-speaking sample. These findings have critical consequences for the measurement of psychological and pharmacological treatment effectiveness in public speaking fear among a French-speaking sample.

Keywords: social phobia, public speaking, confirmatory factor analysis

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