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Classroom Debate FormatJack T. Tessier aa State University of New York, DelhiPublished online: 07 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Jack T. Tessier (2009) Classroom Debate Format, College Teaching, 57:3, 144-152, DOI: 10.3200/CTCH.57.3.144-152

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144 Summer 2009 COLLEGE TEACHING

Jack T. Tessier is an assistant professor at State University of New York, Delhi. Along with the scholarship of teaching and learning, he also performs ecological research related to forest understory plant species.Copyright © 2009 Heldref Publications

CLASSROOM DEBATE FORMAT EFFECT ON STUDENT LEARNING AND REVELATIONS

ABOUT STUDENT TENDENCIESJack T. Tessier

here is currently a movement to make teaching less teacher centered

(Newton 1999) and instead give stu-dents the structure they need to improve their own critical thinking (Proulx 2004; Weimer 2002). Active learning gets stu-dents involved in their own learning and encourages the teacher to guide stu-dents instead of carry them (King 1993). Debates are one form of active learning

that have been employed for some time (e.g., Rapp and Bennett Baker 1966).

The popularity of debates is not difficult to appreciate given that they can improve students’ critical thinking (Allison 2002; Beck 1999; Jackson 1973; Lantis 2004; MacArthur, Ferretti, and Okolo 2002), engagement in learning (MacArthur et al. 2002), listening skills (Allison 2002; Jack-son 1973), arguing skills (Allison 2002), content knowledge (MacArthur et al. 2002), self esteem (Jackson 1973), global thinking (Lantis 2004), and empathy for perspec-tives other than their own (Lantis 2004). Further, students find debates valuable to their own learning (Moeller 1985) and the ability to argue is important to success in

most academic areas (Naylor, Keogh, and Downing 2006; Newton 1999).

Given how valuable debates can be, it is important to consider how to format them to maximize student learning (Proulx 2004). This study had two objectives with-in this framework. The first objective was to compare a series of debate formats for their impact on student learning. The second objective was to examine student opinions and behaviors associated with their preparations and experiences with the different debate formats.

Methods

Debate Formats

Students in a non-major, college-level environmental issues course were required to debate whether or not the United States. should drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The format for this debate changed during the four semesters of this study (table 1). In each case, half of the class debated the ANWR question and the other half of the class debated another energy-related question on another day.

The first format is called the “Standard” format. In this case the students involved in the debate asked questions of each other. Each student was expected to ask one question of the other side and answer one of their questions. The half of the class that was not debating served as a jury for the debate and decided which side won (Jack-son 1973). Students involved in the debate

T

Abstract. To assess the effect of debate format on learning, four formats were separately employed in an environmental issues course. Learning was great-est when students wrote about a debate they wit-nessed, the teacher provided debate questions, and students received a reward for winning. Students val-ued debates for developing their arguing skills, used the Internet as a primary source, and placed trust in sources based on the author more than on their critical reading of the source.

Keywords: active learning, critical reading, debates, Internet

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subsequently completed a report describ-ing their decision about whether or not the United States should drill for oil in ANWR. There was no academic reward given for winning the debate in this format.

The second format is called the “Panel” format. Students involved in the debate were given questions from the other half of the class who would write a report about the topic following the debate (Moeller 1985). The debating students, therefore, found the answers to the questions posed by the report writers and presented their findings as a panel during class. Students received a free point on their own report (about another energy topic) if a student cited them in their report about ANWR.

The third format is called the “Stu-dent Questions” format. Debaters had to address questions given in advance from the report writers and field rebuttals from the opposing side during class. Each side was given time to provide opening and closing statements surrounding the debate (Rapp and Bennett Baker 1966). The report writers determined who won the debate based on their decisions revealed in their reports (Moeller 1985). The win-ning side received two free points on their own reports about another energy topic.

The final format is called the “Pre-Set Questions” format. The questions given in advance in this case came from the instructor and therefore provided more guiding structure than previous formats (Proulx 2004). During the in-class debate, each side gave an opening statement, addressed each of the pre-set questions, fielded new questions from the report writers, openly debated with the opposing side, and gave a closing statement (Rapp and Bennett Baker 1966). The winners of

the debate, based on the reports of those witnessing the debate (Moeller 1985), received a report voucher, which excused the student from one of the six reports due during the semester.

Data Collection

Nine weeks after the ANWR debate, students were asked to voluntarily com-plete a quiz that quantified their knowl-edge of and their thoughts about the ANWR topic (see appendix). This quiz differentiated among questions loose-ly based on Fink’s (2003) taxonomy of learning, including “Foundational Knowledge,” “Application/Integration,” “Learning How to Learn,” and “Caring/Human Dimensions.”

The “Foundational Knowledge” ques-tions probed students’ knowledge of facts about ANWR such as how much oil is expected to be there, how it might be safely removed, etc. “Application/Integration” questions asked students if they felt that drilling for oil in ANWR was a sustainable solution to our energy needs, because sustainability requires a consideration of economics, ecolo-gy, social interests, and the difference between resource supply and resource use rates. “Learning How to Learn” questions required students to speak to what they found difficult or easy to do in preparing for the debate, what sourc-es they used, and how they determined if they could trust those sources to be accurate. “Caring/Human Dimensions” questions revealed whether or not stu-dents had paid attention to news about ANWR since the debate and if they would think about ANWR before they voted for political leaders.

Data Analyses

All data analyses were carried out using SAS version 8.0 at α = .05. I compared students’ “Foundational Knowledge” among debate formats using analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by a Tukey’s HSD to isolate specific differences. Because the other categories of learning contained data that were “yes or no” (i.e., categorical) in regard to whether or not a student had done something, they were compared among debate formats using Kruskal–Wallis tests. For these analyses, each student was treated as a replicate.

Subsequently, to determine patterns in student learning (excluding “Foundation-al Knowledge”) across debate formats, I compared the number of students who reported doing a particular thing within each question with ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD tests using the debate formats as replicates. For example, I compared the percentage of responses among items that students said they found difficult to do in preparing for the debates.

Results

Thirty-one students in the fall of 2004, twenty-nine students in the spring of 2005, twenty-one students in the fall of 2005, and twenty-seven students in the spring of 2006 completed the voluntary quiz. These numbers represent between one-half and three-quarters of the total number of stu-dents in the classes.

The Pre-Set Question format resulted in the highest “Foundational Knowledge” scores, while the Standard format resulted in the lowest scores (figure 1). As students wrote reports about debates they wit-nessed and academic rewards increased, students retained more knowledge about the debate topic.

The other two differences among debate formats related to what students found difficult to do in preparing for the debates. There was a significant differ-ence in the difficulty students reported in preparing facts for the debate, with Pre-Set Questions format having the highest percentage of students reporting difficulty with this task and the Stan-dard format having the lowest (figure 2). There was also a significant difference in the percentage of students reporting difficulty working with groups among

TABLE 1. Debate Formats Included in the Study

QuestionFormat sources Players Report topic Reward

Standard Debaters Two sides Student’s None with jury debate topicPanel Report writers Panel and Panel’s Free point if writers information student is citedStudent questions Report writers Two sides Debate student Two points to with writers witnessed winnersPre-set questions Teacher and Two sides Debate student Report voucher report writers with writers witnessed to winners

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formats, again with the Pre-Set Ques-tions format having the highest percent-age and the Standard format having the lowest percentage of students reporting such difficulty. There were no other sig-nificant differences among formats in regard to what students felt was difficult or easy to do or the skills they felt they developed in preparing for the debates (data not shown).

While students mentioned resource use and supply, along with considerations of economics, social dimensions, and the environment in deciding if drilling for oil in ANWR was sustainable, they cited resource supply and use significantly more than the other tenets of sustain-ability (figure 3). There was not a signifi-cant difference in the rate at which stu-dents mentioned ecological, economic, or social aspects of sustainability.

Across debate formats, students most often reported having an easy time find-ing sources (figure 4). Students also men-tioned having an easy time using the Web, forming questions for the other side, finding time to meet with their groups, and organizing facts for presentation, but these were mentioned significantly less frequently that was the collective idea of finding sources.

The tasks that students indicated they found difficult to do in preparing for debates included working well with group members, preparing facts for presentation, determining if information in a source is false, finding sources, and finding print sources (figure 5). There was not a signifi-cant difference in the rate at which these items were mentioned by students.

The skill that students most often men-tioned developing was their arguing skills (collectively the ability to convince others that your perspective is correct). The skill least often mentioned was using the Web (figure 6). Other skills that students felt they developed included public speaking, critical thinking, and source finding.

Students separated the sources they used in non-mutually exclusive catego-ries (figure 7). The Web was the most often mentioned source, while maga-zines were the least mentioned (figure 7). Other sources that students used included government documents, sci-entific journals, newspapers, television, and environmental groups.

Students indicated that they deter-mined if a source was trustworthy most often by considering the authority (fig-ure 8). Other methods by which stu-dents decided if they could trust a source included if the information was seen in more than one course, if the source seemed biased, if the item was peer reviewed, and if sources were given. Additionally, some students indicated that they relied on blind faith, while oth-ers said one can never trust anything.

Across debate formats, roughly fifty percent of students indicated that they had viewed news about ANWR since the debate and that they would consider the ANWR question before they voted in the next election (figure 9). There was not a significant effect of debate format on this result.

Discussion The results of this study indicate that

the format of a classroom debate affects students’ learning. Therefore, faculty must think carefully about the design of a debate to maximize the learning potential

from the classroom event (Proulx 2004). Regardless of format, classroom debates increased learning skills and encouraged civic engagement. Therefore, debates are an inviting and effective tool for reaching academic and citizenship goals for col-lege graduates (Lantis 2004; MacArthur et al. 2002).

Both writing a report about a debate that the student witnessed (Moeller 1985) and increasing the value of the academic reward for winning the debate improved the effectiveness of the debates. These changes increased the content that stu-dents learned (figure 1), the effort that students put into preparing facts for pre-sentation, and the expectations that they had for their peers (figure 2). Students therefore thrived on the challenge of a valuable reward, and the more work they put into the presentation, the more they learned from the effort. Students reported having more difficulty preparing facts and working in groups as the reward increased. I interpret this account to mean that students cared about the debate more and put more work into it based on

Standard Panel Student questions Pre-set questions

Format

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

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FIGURE 1. Differences in foundational knowledge (factual knowledge about drill-ing for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) retained by students among four classroom debate formats. Note. The mean score is the percentage of correct answers provided on a voluntary quiz. Means with different letters are significantly different at α = .05 based on analysis of variance and Tukey’s HSD. Error bars represent one standard error above and below the mean.

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Difficulty preparing facts Difficulty with groups

Category

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FIGURE 2. Percentage of students who reported difficulty preparing facts or work-ing with groups among four classroom debate formats. Note. Differences were significant among categories at α = .05 based on a Kruskal–Wallis test.

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Standard Panel Student questions Pre-set questions

Resource use Ecology Economics SocialComponent

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FIGURE 3. Components of sustainability discussed by students in determining the sustainability of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Note. Percentage is the amount of students who mentioned each category on a volun-tary survey. Means with different letters are significantly different at α = .05 based on analysis of variance and Tukey’s HSD. Error bars represent one standard error above and below the mean.

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Finding Using the Forming Meeting Organizing sources Web questions with groups presentations

Category

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FIGURE 4. Percentage of students who reported various tasks easy to do in prepar-ing for the debates. Note. Means with different letters are significantly different at α = .05 based on analysis of variance and Tukey’s HSD. Error bars represent one standard error above and below the mean.

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Goups Preparing False Finding Finding facts information sources print source

Category

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FIGURE 5. Percentage of students who reported various tasks difficult to do in preparing for the debates. Note. There were no significant differences in the rate of reports of the different responses. Error bars represent one standard error above and below the mean.

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Arguing Public Critical Finding Using speaking thinking sources the Web

Category

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FIGURE 6. Percentage of students who reported that they developed various skills in preparing for the debates. Note. Means with different letters are significantly different at α = .05 based on analysis of variance and Tukey’s HSD. Error bars represent one standard error above and below the mean.

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Web Government Science Newspaper TV Environment Magazine journal

Category

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FIGURE 7. Percentage of students who reported using various kinds of sources in preparing for the debates. Note. Means with different letters are significantly different at α = .05 based on analysis of variance and Tukey’s HSD. Error bars represent one standard error above and below the mean.

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Authority >1 Source Biased Never trust Blind Peer Sources sources faith review given

Category

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FIGURE 8. Percentage of students who reported using various criteria to determine if they could trust a source in preparing for the debates. Note. Means with different letters are significantly different at α = .05 based on analysis of variance and Tukey’s HSD. Error bars represent one standard error above and below the mean.

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News VoteCategory

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FIGURE 9. Percentage of students who indicated that they had viewed news about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) since the debate and who indicated that they would consider ANWR before voting. Note. There were no significant differences among debate formats for either question.

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Standard Panel Student Questions Pre-Set Questions

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the reward. Motivating students can be viewed in the same way as leading a horse to water but not being able to make him drink. Salt in the food and sugar in the water may help. Because student bodies differ among campuses, individual faculty will need to evaluate just how much sugar needs to be added to the proverbial water.

Students were able to integrate the facts from the debates and apply them to the topic of sustainability. However, students had a simplistic view of sustainability in this case (figure 3), focusing on resource supply and use without as regularly con-sidering economic, social, and ecological requirements of sustainability. This result is disappointing, but it points to the need to continue improvements in debate (and course) design. Specifically, improve-ments in the targeted questions provided by the instructor may help with this criti-cal-thinking shortcoming (Proulx 2004).

Students are generally able to find sources of information (figure 4), but they feel that it requires a great deal of energy to prepare, evaluate, and work in groups with those facts (figure 5). The ready availabil-ity of information on the Web undoubtedly contrasts significantly for students with the effort required to make genuine sense of that information. Faculty should con-sider providing in-class time for students to meet and sort out those facts with guid-ance as they prepare for debates.

Students were aware that they devel-oped arguing, public-speaking, and criti-cal-thinking skills in their work related to the debates (figure 6). This kind of metacognition is encouraging when com-ing from college-age students. Clearly, students struggled with these skills in their work and realized that they needed to improve in these categories (Moeller 1985), all of which are important if we are seeking to develop lifelong, autonomous learners. Debates therefore may be an important way for students to practice the methods that they will use to learn after they complete their academic careers.

Students relied heavily on the Web to access information (figure 7) and used the

authority as their primary means of deter-mining if the source was reliable (fig-ure 8). In examining authorities, students relied on government sources equally with environmental organizations (figure 7). This result may speak to some level of disillusion with government in college students and their desire to hear what they feel may be more honest reporting from nongovernment organizations. Because students are using the Web to such a great extent, faculty must include within their courses means of evaluating Web sources so that our students will have the skills necessary to effectively use the Web and not be falsely persuaded by flashy and official-looking sites with clear agendas and motives. Finally, the reliance on the authority as opposed to critical reading and thinking further underscores the need to infuse students with the skills neces-sary to independently evaluate sources, particularly those on the Web.

These debates promoted the develop-ment of informed and involved citizens (figure 9). The percentage of students who paid attention to news related to the debate topic and who would consider the issue before voting was encouraging. Col-lege can sometimes feel like a vacuum for students, an isolated ivory tower setting remote from the real world. The debate encouraged students to be aware of cur-rent events (Lantis 2004). Further, if those students who indicated that they would consider ANWR before voting actually do vote, this number would be higher than the percentage of college-age citizens who voted in the 2004 presidential election, a year that saw a high youth voter turnout (Pew Charitable Trusts 2007). Such an event would also be encouraging for our system of government.

In conclusion, the format of a classroom debate affects the learning that students achieve. Regardless of format, debates encourage students to develop critical skills and become engaged, informed citi-zens. I encourage faculty to pursue the use of debates and to tailor the format to the characteristics of their student body.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks the students who partici-pated in the debates and quizzes for providing the data, participants of the 2007 National Sci-ence Teachers Association Northern Regional Meeting for critical discussion of the data, and one anonymous reviewer for constructive com-ments that improved the manuscript.

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Beck, C. R. 1999. Francine, Kerplunk, and the golden nugget: Conducting mock trials and debates in the classroom. The Social Studies 90:78–84.

Fink, L. D. 2003. Creating significant learning experiences. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Jackson, M. 1973. Debate: A neglected teach-ing tool. Peabody Journal of Education 50:150–54.

King, A. 1993. From sage on the stage to guide on the side. College Teaching 4:30–35.

Lantis, J. S. 2004. Ethics and foreign policy: structured debates for the international stud-ies classroom. International Studies Per-spectives 5:117–33.

MacArthur, C. A., R. P. Ferretti, and C. M. Okolo. 2002. On defending controversial viewpoints: debates of sixth graders about the desirability of early 20th-century Amer-ican immigration. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice 17:160–72.

Moeller, T. G. 1985. Using classroom debates in teaching developmental psychology. Teaching of Psychology 12:207–9.

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Rapp, D. W., and M. Bennett Baker. 1966. Classroom debates of controversial family life questions. Journal of Marriage and the Family 28:362–64.

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APPENDIX Quiz Questions Used to Assess Student Learning and Opinions

1. How long do we have before the estimated end of oil availability for global economies? 2. How would the oil to be removed from ANWR be kept safe from terrorism? 3. What mechanisms would be put in place to protect the environment in the event of drilling in ANWR? 4. How much oil is buried beneath ANWR? 5. What ecosystem type makes up ANWR? 6. What are the alternatives to drilling for oil in ANWR? 7. Is drilling for oil in ANWR a sustainable solution to our energy needs? Why or why not? 8. What did you find easy to do in preparing for the debate? 9. What did you find difficult to do in preparing for the debate? 10. What skills did you develop as a result of the debate? 11. Since the debate, have you read any news related to drilling for oil in ANWR? 12. When deciding for whom you will vote in the future, will you consider the ANWR question? 13. To what specific sources would you turn to learn more about the question of whether or not to drill for oil in ANWR? 14. How would you know if you could trust these sources?

Note. ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

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