The efficacy of remote video‐based training on public speaking

Four adults wanted to speak better in public. Laske’s team taught them over Zoom.

They used behavioral skills training: explain, show, practice, give feedback. Each person worked on three skills like eye contact and clear pacing.

Every adult hit the mastery goal for each skill. Their new skills carried over to bigger live audiences.

Expert judges rated the post-training speeches higher. Speech disfluencies stayed the same, but confidence jumped.

Harper et al. (2023) got the same big gains when they trained clinicians to present at team meetings. Both studies used the same BST steps, just different speaking arenas.

Magnacca et al. (2022) also ran BST fully online and saw solid fidelity. Together these papers show remote BST works across topics—public speaking, ACT groups, or medical rounds.

Zhu et al. (2020) used remote feedback first, but only gave delayed coaching. Laske added live practice and models, a clear step up from feedback alone.

You can build polished speakers without renting a room. Run a quick Zoom BST block: model the skill, have the learner practice while you watch, give instant feedback, repeat until mastery. It saves travel time and still produces confident, audience-ready staff or clients.