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Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety of Software Engineers Using Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

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Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement (EuroSPI 2017)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 748))

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Abstract

Public speaking anxiety is a type of social phobia, which might be commonly seen in novice software engineers. It is usually triggered by a fear of social performance especially when the performer is unfamiliar with the audience. Today, many software engineering activities (e.g. code inspection, peer review, daily meetings, etc.) require social gatherings where individuals need to present their work. However, novice software engineers may not be able to reduce their performance anxiety during their course of education. In this study, we propose a virtual reality approach to construct a practice environment for improving novice software engineers’ pubic speaking experiences. Consequently, we examine the effects of virtual reality intervention on the public speaking experience of six novice software engineers from a computer engineering department. We designed a virtual auditorium to simulate the presentation delivery environment and findings suggest that using this infrastructure for training purposes can reduce presenter anxiety levels – which is consistent with related published studies. We believe that this virtual auditorium environment can deliver benefits for students and practitioners alike in terms of addressing the anxiety that is often associated with early stage career presenters.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Çankaya University, Ankara, Turkey

    Merve Denizci Nazligul

  2. Department of Computer Engineering, Çankaya University, Ankara, Turkey

    Murat Yilmaz, Ulas Gulec & Mert Ali Gozcu

  3. Virtual Reality Research and Development Laboratory, Çankaya University, Ankara, Turkey

    Merve Denizci Nazligul, Murat Yilmaz, Ulas Gulec & Mert Ali Gozcu

  4. School of Computing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Rory V. O’Connor & Paul M. Clarke

  5. Lero, The Irish Software Engineering Research Center, Limerick, Ireland

    Rory V. O’Connor & Paul M. Clarke

Authors
  1. Merve Denizci Nazligul
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  2. Murat Yilmaz
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  3. Ulas Gulec
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  4. Mert Ali Gozcu
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  5. Rory V. O’Connor
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  6. Paul M. Clarke
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Murat Yilmaz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

    Jakub Stolfa

  2. Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

    Svatopluk Stolfa

  3. Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Rory V. O'Connor

  4. I.S.C.N. GesmbH , Graz, Austria

    Richard Messnarz

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Nazligul, M.D., Yilmaz, M., Gulec, U., Gozcu, M.A., O’Connor, R.V., Clarke, P.M. (2017). Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety of Software Engineers Using Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy. In: Stolfa, J., Stolfa, S., O'Connor, R., Messnarz, R. (eds) Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement. EuroSPI 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 748. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64218-5_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64218-5_15

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64217-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64218-5

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