Fear of Negative Evaluation and Communication Apprehension: The Moderating Role of Communicative Competence and Extraversion Personality Trait in Pakistani Academia

This study examines the moderating role of communicative competence and extraversion personality traits on the relationship between fear of negative evaluation and communication apprehension in Pakistani academics teaching in their second (English) language. One hundred and twenty academics (aged 25–60) completed a demographic information sheet, the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Questionnaire (BFNE-11) (Leary in Pers Soc Psychol Bull 9:371–376, 1983 ), the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) (McCroskey in An introduction to rhetorical communication, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1982 ), the Self-Perceived Communication Competence Scale (SPCC) (McCroskey and McCroskey in Commun Res Rep 5(2):108–113, 1988 ) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised-Short Form (EPQRS-R) (1985). A sequence of moderated regression analyses showed that communicative competence significantly moderated the relationship between fear of negative evaluation and communication apprehension. The findings have implications for instructors, campus counselors and researchers and academic policy makers wishing to identify factors that may help academics cross communicative barriers, enrich the learning experience and enhance positive psychological functioning.