Critical Thinking While many academic
endeavors teach students what to think, training in academic debate helps the middle
school students learn how to think."American educators agreed last year that
argumentative reasoning should be taught in schools when those in most states
adopted the new Common Core State Standards. . . it turns out that arguing with
others is more effective than arguing on paper" (Villarica, 2011). A
recent study published in the academic journal Psychological Science found
that urban middle-school students who participated in debates showed
significant gains in ability to generate substantive questions, ability to
argue one's own position, ability to identify arguments on the
"other" side ("dual perspective"), and ability to
weigh pros and cons ("integrative perspective"). The research
was reported on in a recent Time magazine article (http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/17/why-arguing-improves-students-reasoning-skills/).Schommer-Atkins and Easter (2009)
explain that “the mental activity needed
for developing an argument encourages the constitutive process of integrating
ideas, processing information deeply, and thinking critically” (Winstead,
2010, p. 78).Further, The National
Development Conference on Forensics explains, academic debating forces students
to examine their attitudes: “Debate is
distinctive because of its unique dialectical form, providing the opportunity
for intellectual clash in the testing of ideas.”
Allen, Berkowitz, Hunt,
and Louden conclude that “unbridled by the limitations found within the
traditional lecture-oriented classroom situation, participants must learn to
invent, organize, and articulate thoughts subject to scrutiny by others.” “The student learns to
improve the quality of thinking and how to critique the arguments and
conclusions of others.The process of
participating as a communicator originating the argument, and as a critical
consumer, provides a ‘hands on’ experience that should improve critical
thinking ability” (p. 19).
Small wonder that “Tomposky
(2004) acknowledges debate as a means for moving students from lower levels of
comprehension to higher levels” of Bloom’s taxonomy.Roy and Marchiette (2005) suggest that debate
is an effective means of addressing the taxonomy of critical thinking developed
by Paul” (Camp & Schnader, 2010, p, 657).Specifically, Camp & Schnader argue, Roy and Marchiette “highlight
the effectiveness of debate in” promoting the clarity, accuracy, precision,
completeness, relevance and logical connectedness skills identified by Paul (p.
657).
Debate participation enhances the ability to think critically.Camp & Schnader (2010) report that “the extant literature suggests that debate
is a well-established pedagogical tool for enhancing student critical thinking
skills” (p, 655).Allen and
Wilmington conclude that “most proponents
of debate participation claim that it fosters the development of student
critical thinking abilities.Available
empirical evidence suggests that they are correct.”After an exhaustive review of the literature,
Keefe, Harte, and Norton concluded that “many
researchers over the past four decades have come to the same general
conclusions.Critical thinking ability
is significantly improved by courses in argumentation and debate and by debate
experience.” Allen and colleague’s meta-analysis
provides additional support for previous findings on the debating-thinking
link.
Referencing the “direct
evidence” of Green & Klug’s pre-test / post-test research design, Camp
& Schnader (2010) report that “students who were exposed to the debate
process did show improvement in critical thinking skills as compared to the
control group” (p, 658).Citing four 21st
century studies, Yang & Rushi (2011) report, that using debate “as a
pedagogical tool has effect on promoting higher order and critical thinking”
(p. 1131).