ABSTRACT
An alternative to the well-known and widely used Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA) scale (McCroskey, 1982) is the Communication Anxiety Inventory (CAI) developed by Booth-Butterfield and Gould. Form State was devised simply because of the inaccessibility of and copyright concerns associated with the State Anxiety Inventory. The CAI Form Trait appears to be internally consistent. The CAI Form Trait demonstrates considerable construct validity. Evidence of the CAI Form State’s construct validity has appeared in the communication apprehension literature. In addition to providing new items, the CAI Form Trait offers a response format different from the many versions of the PRCA. Because anxiety theory posits both Intensity and Frequency dimensions in conceptualizing anxiety, the CAI serves an important measurement function. Overall, the CAI presents interesting new hypotheses about communication anxiety.
