Presentations are a common means of communication worldwide with learners expected to engage to disseminate academic knowledge (Tsang, 2020). However, presentations demands on students are little researched compared to written communication outputs (Ducasse and Brown, 2023). This lightning talk will look at the complexities students need to negotiate to communicate a successful presentation then introduce an adaptation to the activity using the author's own theory - people, place, compassion, power or PPCP (Dyer, 2022).

1. Step up to presentations –
the PPCP approach
Laura Dyer
University of Leeds
L.V.Dyer@Leeds.ac.uk

2. Overview
• Presentations in HE and their issues
• The approach to redesigning the presentation for the HE student –
people, place, compassion, power
• Introducing the dialogic presentation

3. Presentations and their use in HE
• Widely used in HE
• The main means of assessing through speaking (see University of
Leeds module catalogue)
• Expect to do a presentation at some point

4. The issues with presentations
• Stress inducing – increased cortisol (Merz et al., 2019)
• Not inclusive – eg. stammer (Mann and Clift, 2021)
• Audience awareness – putting yourself in their place (Liu et al., 2021)
• lack of presentation experience – students may be unaccustomed to
the task (Bankowski, 2010)
• Time constraints – a performance?
• Transferrable skills? (Byrne, 2020)

5. Approach to redesigning the presentation
for the HE student
Figure 1. PPCP model of elements (Dyer, 2022)
Factors to consider:
People – which students? How many?
Place – where does the event take place?
Compassion – a 'selective' audience,
comfortable learning environment, limit
constraints eg. time
Power – students take control of situation, less
reliance on teacher, a chance to 'explore'
others' opinions, engagement, chance to
communicate freely on a specific topic
Confidence, competence, content

6. The dialogic presentation
ü Small group
ü Comfortable environment for both speaker and group members
ü Presenter displays laptop and 'presents' to audience
ü No script or memorisation
ü Group members interact with presenter and highlight points they see during
the 'presentation'
ü No strict time limit
ü Becomes a dialogue between students
ü Focus on group members rather than teacher

7. Applying the approach
• People – smaller group
• Place – comfortable
• Compassion – less intimidating, lower physical strain by sitting down, no
restriction on time
• Power – more confidence, less stressful, a chance to respond and act on
questions, student rather than teacher focused, learn from and 'teach' peers
• Use as a step to prepare students for assessed presentations

8. Resolving the issues
• Potential to reduce stress through modified experience
• More 'relaxed' approach could help with inclusivity
• Increased audience awareness – focus on group members
• Scaffold through to presentation task
• Removal of time limits
• Transferrable skills – dialogue, negotiation, communication

9. This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA.

10. References
• Bankowski, E. (2010), 'Developing skills for effective academic presentations in EAP,' International
Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 22(2), pp187-196
• Byrne, C. (2020), 'What determines perceived graduate employability? Exploring the effects of
personal characteristics, academic achievements and graduate skills in a survey experiment,'
Studies in Higher Education, 47(1), pp. 159-176, https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1735329
• Dyer, L. (2022), 'People, place, compassion, power – an alternative approach to peer feedback',
PRiA Slow Conference. University of Leeds, 30 March 2022
• Liu, TL., Yang, YF. And Hong, YC. (2021), 'Raising students' audience awareness for oral
presentation through online role reversal,' System, 99, pp.
102510, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2021.102510.
• Mann, RH. And Clift, BC. (2021), 'Stammering in academia: voice in the management of self and
others,' in Brown, N. (ed.) Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in
Higher Education. Bristol: Policy Print, pp. 111-126
• Merz, CJ., Hageborn, B and Wolf, OT. (2019), 'An oral presentation causes stress and memory
impairments', Psychoneuroendocrinology, 104, pp. 1-
6, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.02.010.