Abstract

In order for students to effectively transfer oral communication skills from academic to professional settings, they must have high oral communication self-efficacy. We significantly increased oral communication self-efficacy in a sample of 97 undergraduate business majors by incorporating enactive mastery, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological arousal into a business communication course. Self-efficacy was positively and significantly correlated with course performance, and increases in self-efficacy were positively and significantly correlated with changes in overall grade point average. By targeting self-efficacy, instructors can improve students’ oral communication skills and help them transfer these skills from academic to professional settings.