The Impact of Academic Debate on Critical Thinking Development of Adolescents

Cognitive abilities in the age of adolescence reach a high standard. Critical thinking, an ability of each young individual, offers possible solutions for everyday situations as well as for complex tasks requiring an intellectual engagement. It is crucial to find new ways to support and further develop critical thinking of adolescents. The theoretical section is divided into three subsections. The first of them is based on a specification of the period of adolescence mainly focusing on the cognitive development. The second section is dedicated to critical thinking and in the last section, the academic debate as a method of education is presented. The core of this thesis is to examine the influence of debating on the development of critical thinking of adolescents. The empirical section describes a survey conducted as a part of an international survey project Evaluations. The theoretical baseline has determined three specific tasks to evaluate the gathered data. In these tasks, three groups of participants are observed and compared - debaters beginners, advanced debaters and non-debaters. Keywords: Adolescence, Debating, Cognitive development, Critical thinking