Anxiety in self-confrontation: detection and measurement

This paper summarizes an attempt to measure and detect "anxiety" or "arousal" in self-confrontation in a university teaching methods training programme. Self-confrontation arousal is caused by viewing CCTV recordings of short micro-lectures. Arousal detection is important as the use of video-recordings is an important element in the training provision made for new members of the teaching staff. Using ECG detection the heart rate of staff viewing themselves teach was found to increase on initial confrontation, but to decrease as the initial cosmetic effect became more acceptable. The paper suggests that ECG detection and measurement is a suitable tool for investigating confrontation in training programmes that use CCTV recordings.