**4.3 Instruments**

The participants in the present study answered a survey which consisted of three parts. Part 1 covered such background information as name, gender, age, year of study, and major. Part 2 was the 12-item Academic Oral Communication Anxiety Scale (AOCAS) adopted from that used in [12], which was adapted from the Second Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (SLSAS) constructed in [62]. The SLSAS intends to measure SL speaking anxiety in different communicative situations (e.g., in-class and out-of-class situations) to different interlocutors (e.g., the number of speakers, the status of the speakers and whether the speaker is a native or non-native speaker of English). The adapted AOCAS aimed to measure respondents' anxiety levels when speaking English about their research in various formal situations like classroom discussion, individual presentation, seminars and conferences. Example items were 'I feel anxious when talking to other people about my research findings in English' and 'I feel anxious when presenting (or will present) my research in English in an international conference'.

Part 3 was the 15-item Expectancy-Value Beliefs Inventory (EVBI) adapted from [17]. Similar to the original inventory, this adapted EVBI also comprised five dimensions: 5-item Expectancy, 3-item Attainment Value (AV), 3-item Intrinsic Value (IV), 2-item Utility Value (UV), and 2-item Cost Value (CV). To better fit the present situation, the item 'I am good at communicating with my peers in English' was added to the original 4-item Expectancy, indicating the expectation of oneself as a person being able to communicate in English with peers about his/her research. Another example item was 'I have difficulty talking about my research project in English'. The three AV items were reflective of the importance of having the ability to communicate in English about research. An example AV item was 'Being able to communicate academic study in English is important to me'. The 3-item IV was concerned with intrinsic/internal desire to learn academic oral communication. An example IV item was 'I would like to have more classes like this to practice my English for academic communication'. The 2-item UV suggested the value of good academic communication skills. For example, 'Good grades in academic oral English can be of great value to me later'. The 2-item CV was about the investment in learning academic oral English. An example CV item was 'I'd have to invest a lot of time to improve my academic speaking English'.

Items in parts 2 and 3 were all placed on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 'strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree' with values 1 to 7 assigned to each of the descriptors respectively. Thus, a higher AOCAS score meant greater anxiety about academic oral communication; a higher expectancy score meant great expectation of oneself at communicating in English about academic study; and a higher AV/IV/ UV/CV score indicated greater attainment/intrinsic desire/practical value/investment of/in having the ability to communicate in English about academic study.

As shown in **Table 1**, both the AOCAS and the EVBI scales except Expectancy were highly reliable in both phases, with reliability scores ranging from .764 to .988 in phase 1 and from .676 to 957 in phase 2, respectively.

Meanwhile, some survey respondents were invited to informal interviews to elicit more inside views about AOC anxiety as well as expectancy and value beliefs about AOC in both phases. The lead questions in phase 1 covered such issues as reasons for learning AOC, expectations for the course, efforts intended to learn AOC, importance of learning AOC well, feelings when presenting research in English in different situations, and causes for feeling anxious. The core questions in phase 2


#### **Table 1.**

*Characteristics of AOCAS and EVBI Scales (N = 74).*

included gains from the course, efforts made to learn the course, feelings when presenting research in English in different situations, causes for feeling anxious, etc.
