Gaze and facial expression in engineering student presentations: a comparative case study of a high- and low-performing presenter
Gaze and facial expression are non-verbal communicative modes that help presenters to reinforce their verbal messages and perform communicative functions to meet oral presentation goals. However, there are limited studies on how gaze and facial expression are used in engineering student presentat...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2023
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/164426 |
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Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
Language: | English |
Summary: | Gaze and facial expression are non-verbal communicative modes that help presenters
to reinforce their verbal messages and perform communicative functions to meet oral
presentation goals. However, there are limited studies on how gaze and facial
expression are used in engineering student presentations, especially in areas related
to their occurrence, frequency, and duration incurred during delivery. This case study
used multimodal discourse analysis and coding statistics to compare the ways gaze
and facial expression were used by two engineering students who scored the highest
and lowest marks in an engineering presentation assessment. The findings showed the
high-performing presenter used comparatively lesser gaze fixation shifts and longer
durations of direct and sustained gaze at the audience during her delivery when
compared to the low-performing presenter. Serious and smiling facial expressions
were used predominantly throughout the presentation by the high-performing
presenter, as compared to the low-performing presenter who used mostly neutral
facial expressions. It was concluded that the high-performing presenter used gaze and
facial expression more successfully to perform communicative functions to emphasise
co-occurring verbal messages, evaluate and promote her product, foster a competent
impression, and establish rapport with the audience. |
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