The influence of formal and informal debate on students' persuasive speech

Abstract

This quantitative quasi-experimental study determined the effects of teaching Formal and Informal Debates as techniques in students' persuasive speech. Further, it determined whether significant differences existed between pretest and/or posttest scores of the students when classified as a whole and when classified according to group. The participants of this study were the seventy-two (72) junior high school students enrolled in a national high school in Iloilo City for School Year 2017-2018. The two classes were randomly assigned as first experimental group that was exposed to formal debate and the other is to informal debate. They were match-paired based on their gender and score in the oral pretest. A researcher-made persuasive speech test with an adapted persuasive speech scoring rubric was used as instrument in this study. This instrument was content-and face-validated by a panel of three experts. Mean and standard deviation were employed for the descriptive analysis of the study. The inferential statistical tools employed were t-test for dependent samples and t-test for independent samples all set at .05 alpha level of significance. This study found that the participants' pretest level of persuasive speech was approaching proficiency. When classified according to grouping, both the Formal Debate Group and the Informal Debate Group had an approaching proficiency level in their persuasive speech. After the conduct of the interventions, the participants' posttest level of persuasive speech was proficient. When classified according to grouping, both the Formal Debate Group and the Informal Debate Group also had proficient level in their persuasive speech. When the homogeneity and heterogeneity of the participants were checked, it appeared that there was no significant difference in their pretest scores of persuasive speech classified according to Formal Debate Group and Informal Debate Group. This indicates that the two groups were comparable and had the equal level of persuasive speech. After the conduct of the intervention for each group, it appeared that there was a significant difference in the posttest scores of persuasive speech of the participants. This implies that since Formal Debate Group had higher mean, it indicates that they performed much better compared to the Informal Debate Group. Significant difference also existed in the pretest and posttest scores of persuasive speech of the Formal Debate Group as well as the Informal Debate Group which indicates that the participants from both groups performed better after the conduct of the intervention. Though both groups performed better after the conduct of the intervention, another significant difference existed in the mean gain scores of the participants since the Formal Debate Group had greater mean gain compared to the Informal Debate Group. Formal and Informal debate had a great impact on the participants' persuasive speech as revealed in the results in their pretest and posttest scores. Although, these teaching techniques are difficult to prepare and public speaking is feared by the students, formal and informal debate might be helpful to not only increase their persuasive speech performance but also develop their critical thinking skills, self-confidence and camaraderie.