Nervous anxiety a presenter’s nightmare.....

Well the day finally arrived, 12 months into the doctoral programme and the first pubic presentation of ideas and plans was upon me. This should not bother me! I have lectured to classes of 40 plus healthcare professionals on a regular basis in the middle east, a foreign culture, country and indeed where for many English is their second language. So why, oh why has this rattled me? In my quest to find my reflective voice and preferred model I’ll run this one through Gibb’s reflective cycle:

Description: The third in a series of five taught modules on the doctoral programme was assessed by two components; an essay style research proposal and a planned presentation to the supervisory and module teaching panel. I had reasonably well prepared the presentation, having drafted 15 or so slides to guide my 20-minute presentation slot or so I had thought. On arrival it transpired these presentations were not only to the module teaching panel but in front of fellow students. A planned presentation for 3 to 5 persons become a presentation to almost 20. It also transpired that 4 had already presented prior to my arrival and I was next up. I had no time to modify what was on the slide set, nor had I any time to psych myself up to re-frame the story I was about to tell to fellow students. Walking up to the podium to connect the hard drive, I was faced with an Apple Mac, and what seemed like an uncooperative USB connection. The drive was not recognised. After some assistance from those who had experienced similar issues before my arrival and what seemed to me to be the longest 15 minutes of my life, I was set to go and present. Even I could hear the quiver in my voice. As I progressed through the slides confidence grew until I hit a slide that was difficult to read due to volume of content and the positioning of the screen. I had to wing my way through it. After what seemed like an eternity I finally got through the story I wanted to tell (mostly) and the time came for questions. At this stage you could see the physical stress clearly denoted by the beads of sweat on my brow!

Eventually, after a few questions and some comments, it was done.

Feelings: I was not what you might call nervous on arrival, maybe cautiously aware of the challenge and knowing that I probably wouldn’t do myself justice, but confident I should get by. It was after all just going to be 3 to 5 people I had already met and they were on myside as it were. And indeed what’s the worst that could happen, they could fail me and I could resubmit and learn from the experience.

On arrival something flipped. The confidence dissipated on hearing the changed format, and then the anxiety grew on hearing I was up next. There was an element of frustration at the non communicated changes and also a moment of anger at what I perceived as being misled. All of this combined to create an obviously nervous presenter. Nerves and presentations do not make good bedfellows!

As I wrestled with the IT equipment these feelings shifted to embarrassment, which of course is a somewhat self-fulfilling emotion, in that, if you feel it you body shows it and it makes you feel it even more. A bright red head and a beaded brow being my obvious signals. As I progressed through the presentation the feelings changed to self-anger for allowing myself get so agitated by all of this. My inner voice screaming to myself 'cop on this is not normal man?!

Evaluation: Evaluating this down to its basics such as; what was good and what was bad about this experience now that I reflect on it is a useful exercise.

Staring with the negatives:

• I let this get to me and there was no real reason why I should. But the more I think about this I view this incident as a good sign. It shows me how much this actually means to me that I allowed is get under my skin.

• Despite my normal ready for all eventualities approach to life, this one caught me by surprise. Thinking about it in hindsight perhaps the real thing that got to me was control of the situation was snapped from me, and unknowingly perhaps I am a little bit of a control freak with the important issues in my life.

• Due to stress levels, my timings were out and thus I missed some of the more detailed and I felt important slides on the project planning and key proposed events of the project.

• My compensation strategies were not effective. By this I mean the visual clues to my stress were obvious to all. This in fact was further compounded by the fact I had left my jacket on and the heat in the room was intense.

The positives:

• The presentation itself was well received and while results are still a month out, I have no reason to believe I will fail this element of the assessment.

• All the questions and comments were positive and encouraging and led to considerable in class discussion.

• Speaking with classmates they all also commented on the anxiety and stress of this and while I felt I clearly showed evidence of my anxiety, they for the most part (be it in an attempt to be encouraging or being truthful I am unsure) said I presented very professionally and to the point and seemed to be in control of the situation.

• I will learn from this situation and experience and will grow in confidence in presentation style and preparedness.

• The exercise of preparing the slide set gave a valuable opportunity to get clarity and revision on my project for myself.

Analysis: Looking at this now, perhaps the key issue was that I approached this element of the assignment from the wrong perspective completely. I was concerned with style of presentation, style over substance perhaps, and as such focusing on these elements allowed factors such as pride and self-image to take centre stage. I suspect had I put the content, my proposal and my research and the aims of the learning opportunity to the centre and not given a toss about my self­-image, none of these emotions and feelings would have evolved. Of course presentation and dissemination is a key skill, however so is being able to do so in challenging environments. This was not a hostile environment, rather a safe one and as such the hostility was internal to me, my self-image and self-doubt. It still however offered a real time learning opportunity.

Conclusion: This was a stressful experience, made more stressful by my own self-doubt and anxiety. I suspect in a sense that while it was not as slick and professional as it could have been it was not as bad as I perceived it. The importance of the doctorate journey and attaining completion in this situation is paramount to me and I suspect this fear of failure did not help.

Action plan: There are a few things that I am resolved to do going forward:

1. Focus on content and core element and try not to get drawn into the superficial elements of display and presentation. Yes, these are important however they will evolve as my confidence in what I am researching will

2. Update the presentation to eliminate the more difficult to view elements and spared these out over the slides to just one message per slide, use this as the launch pad for next iteration of the work

3. Have a little self-confidence, all in all the presentation was well received and commented on so I must know what I am doing, or at least be able to cover it up when I’m not

4. Try to enjoy these unscripted experiences and use them as self-development and learning opportunities

5. Have handouts so I could work without IT and be prepared to just speak rather than present

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Gibbs, G. (1998) Learning by doing: a guide to teaching and learning methods. London:FEU