Public Speaking

The Audience and the Topic (^73)

The Audience and the Topic

Just knowing demographic characteristics does not tell you how listeners will react to your

topic. By taking their psychological profile through direct or indirect methods, you can

discern some of their beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors related to your subject.

Direct Methods

Use direct methods by asking the audience members what they think and do, whether

by an interview, a focus group, or a questionnaire. For instance, a commencement

speaker interviewed several students about their campus experiences and their expecta-

tions for the future and then wove this information into his speech. Focus group con-

sultants, especially in politics or organizations, invite a small group of representative

respondents to answer a few questions about a policy or a product.

For classroom speeches, questionnaires are common. Create a paper-and-pencil

test, or use Internet resources such as SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang, or Fluidsurveys that

make it easy to distribute, collect, and analyze data, often free of charge. Although Leif

was personally excited about hovercrafts, he wanted to know how to make his infor-

mation understandable and interesting to first-year college classmates. So early in his

preparation, he created an online questionnaire to assess his classmates’ knowledge

and beliefs about hovercraft technology as well as their attitudes, values, and behaviors

regarding alternative vehicles.

As Chapter 1 briefly pointed out, a belief is a mental acceptance of something as

true or false, correct or incorrect, valid or invalid.^23 Because beliefs are based on study

and investigation, as well as on convictions developed without much factual information

or knowledge, misconceptions are common. Leif used a closed question (one answer)

such as this to gauge his listeners’ knowledge of the topic:

Do you know what a hovercraft is?

Ye s

No

I’m not sure

He followed this with an open question that allowed listeners to explain what they

knew about the physics behind these all-terrain vehicles:

In the box below, tell what you know about the “Summation of Force” or “Net

Force” principle.

Attitudes are our tendencies to like or dislike something or to have positive or

negative feelings about it. Scaled questions typically measure attitudes along a range

or continuum, from highly positive to neutral to highly negative. This scaled question

relates to Leif’s topic:

I am interested in all-terrain vehicles (ATVs).

I-------------------I-------------------I-------------------I-------------------I-------------------I-------------------I

strongly agree mildly neutral mildly disagree strongly

agree agree disagree disagree

psychological profile

assessment of an audience’s

beliefs, values, and attitudes

regarding a topic

direct methods asking

audience members directly

for their opinion by question-

naires, interviews, and so on

belief mental acceptance of

something as true or false,

correct or incorrect, valid or

invalid

closed question request for

a brief, specific answer

open question giving oppor-

tunity for a range of answers

or a more lengthy response

attitudes our tendency to

like or dislike something or

to have positive or negative

feelings about it

scaled questions asking

for responses along a

continuum, used to assess

attitudes

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