Abstract:

Oral communication is a core competence in higher education, yet it is not always systematically fostered through explicit, teachable classroom routines. This study examined whether a teacher development program designed to strengthen communicative teaching practices using the digital tool EVALOE-SSD (Decision Support System for the Evaluation of Oral Language Teaching, "Escala de Valoración de la Enseñanza de la Lengua Oral como Sistema de Soporte a la toma de Decisiones" in Spanish) was associated with changes in university students’ self-perceived oral communication competence over the course of one academic semester. The pre-test was administered at the start of the semester and the post-test at the end, capturing change across the same instructional period.

Students completed the Self-Perceived Oral Competence Test (TCOA; 22 items with a 5-point response scale) at both time points. Results are reported for students who responded in both waves (n = 142). Because psychometric analyses support a dominant general oral-competence factor, the total score was treated as the primary outcome, with facet-level results used to interpret where change was most apparent.

Descriptively, mean total scores increased from the beginning to the end of the semester, and paired comparisons indicated a statistically significant improvement with a moderate effect size, despite relatively high baseline scores (Wilcoxon signed-rank test: V = 6,188, p = 0.0004, r = 0.30; moderate).

At the facet level, mean pre–post differences were statistically significant for a subset of dimensions, with small effect sizes. This pattern was complemented by examining the change in the proportion of “high” responses (ratings ≥4) from pre- to post-test (percentage-point change shown in parentheses). The most consistent gains appeared in Lexicon and Terminology (LT; +8.5 percentage points), followed by Textual Coherence and Cohesion (TCC; +3.2) and Multimodality and Prosody (MP; +3.0).

These patterns suggest that the teacher development was especially effective in enhancing how students experience their ability to use appropriate vocabulary, integrate prosodic and non-verbal resources, and organize what they say with clearer signaling of ideas and conclusions. Overall, the findings indicate that a teacher development program using the digital tool EVALOE-SSD can translate into meaningful improvements in university students’ perceived oral competence, and that the TCOA is a sensitive and informative tool for monitoring these changes in higher education contexts.

Keywords:

Oral communication competence, Pretest–posttest evaluation, Higher education, Teacher professional development, Student self-perceptions.