Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe general purpose of this study is to investigate the attainment of a specific educational goal which is believed to be related to competitive debating. Specifically, the intent of this study is to compare the increase of critical thinking ability between two discreet groups--interscholastic high school debaters and high school non-debaters. Also incorporated in this study are two concomitant variables, belief systems (concrete and abstract) and the amount of debating experience (none, low participation, and high participation). For this study, nine randomly selected high schools from the Greater Portland Metropolitan Area were used with the debate coaches administering the pre and posttest to 136 subjects. The experimental subjects were competing in their first year of inter scholastic debating. Subjects, for the control group, were chosen at random from the participating high school teachers' students. This study used a nonequivalent control group design which compared the experimental group and the control on the criterion variable of critical thinking as measured by the Watson-Glasser Thinking Appraisal Test, form Ym, and the posttest utilized the same form. Also, included as concomitant measures were the Conceptual Systems Test and the amount debating experience. Thus, the factorial design was a 2 X 3. An analysis of covariance was used to test main effects and interactions to determine significant F values on the subtests and the total test scores of the Watson-Glaser. For post hoc comparisons among "corrected means," Scheffe at the .10 level was used to locate the statistical significance. The results were: 1. Those who are drawn to competitive debate, low and high participants, and continue for one academic year have greater critical thinking facilities than those who are not attracted to debate. 2. High participation in competitive debate accelerates debaters' capacity in critical thinking while low participation may not enhance critical thinking beyond the normal improvement in an academic year. 3. Debaters with abstract belief systems significantly outgained debaters with concrete belief systems in critical thinking. 4. Abstract subjects with high debate participation significantly outgained others in critical thinking while concrete subjects with debate experience only outgained non-debaters. This study discovered which variables alone and in combination will best predict an increase in critical thinking. But specific questions were raised that this study left unanswered about debate and critical thinking. Recommendations were made for further studies using a wider sample of debate programs, seeking specific debate activities which improves critical thinking, assessing the longitudinal effects of debate training and evaluating the transfer of improved critical thinking to the resolution of practical, everyday matters