Perceptions of high school opinion leaders about the role of college debaters in the high school debate community.

• Author: Littlefield, Robert S.

The collegiate debate community is a decentralized system with multiple homophilous cliques (Rogers, 1995). Members have reinvented the debate format and modified acceptable practices in order to preserve an activity that college debaters believe is beneficial for them (Williams, McGee, & Worth, 2001). One of the consequences stemming from the disagreement about which form of debate best serves the needs of students has been a decline in the number of colleges and universities sponsoring debate teams (Moore, 2002; Rogers, 2002).

High school policy debate mirrors its collegiate counterpart in many ways; and some high school teams have drawn new theories and strategies from collegiate debate to give them a competitive edge while traveling the national circuit. Another group of high school coaches prefers a more traditional form of policy debate. Members of each group often are critical of the other, despite the findings that high school students consider the benefits stemming from any form of debate to outweigh its disadvantages (Littlefield, 2001).

Linking these two groups are college debaters--serving high school programs as judges, research assistants, assistant coaches, and coaches--who are viewed by some as the means by which innovative theories and strategies are conveyed to the high school policy debate community (Pineda, n.d.). The question arises: How are college debaters contributing to the stability of the high school debate community?

Little recent scholarship has explored the relationship between the high school and college debate communities. Littlefield (2001) reviewed the related scholarship of the past 75 years and found the majority of articles about high school debate to be not applicable to current practice. A few recent studies have explored collegiate debate, most notably the one conducted by Williams, McGee, and Worth (2001) that surveyed college debaters about the perceived benefits and drawbacks of debate participation. Many of the top high school debaters viewed the efficacy of debate in a manner similar to that of their collegiate counterparts (Littlefield, 2001). What is not known is how opinion leaders in the high school debate community view the college debater or the way these opinion leaders respond when college debaters introduce ideas of behaviors that violate their expectations. This study provides insight into the nature of this relationship.

METHOD

Participants

The participants in this study were high school debate opinion leaders drawn from two groups: the National Forensic League (1) and representatives of state high school activities associations or their designees. (2) Roughly one-half of the 103 NFL District Chairs were at the 2002 National Tournament where the initial distribution of the survey took place. Those not present were mailed a copy of the survey. A total of 59 NFL District Chairs completed surveys, representing 31 states. In addition, on-line surveys were sent to 38 representatives of high school activities associations responsible for debate, of which 28 surveys were completed. The combination of District Chairs and state activities association representatives created a total of 87 respondents for this study.

The quality of the pool of participants was high. Fifty-nine respondents were elected District Chairs by their peers, most serving multiple years in this role and having firsthand knowledge of their districts' coaches and practices. The respondents from the state high school activities associations also indicated multiple years of experience in their current roles and felt knowledgeable of coaches and policy debate norms in their states. (3)

Instrument

The 26-item survey requested demographic data, levels of agreement to opinion statements about perceived characteristics of coaches and judges, factual information about the level of policy debate activity under their jurisdiction, and an assessment of the involvement of college debaters in high school debate activities. The demographic data provided the level of leadership held by the respondents and their connection with policy debate. The ten opinion statements using a Likert-type scale assessed the self-perceptions of the respondents, as well as their perceptions about the innovativeness of coaches, judges, college debaters, and college coaches in their district of state. Seven items gathered factual information about the status of policy debate in their jurisdictions in 2002. The last six items provided information about how college debaters were being used in high school debate, the orientation of the college debaters (NDT/CEDA, parliamentary debate, of policy LD), and two open ended items assessing the perceived advantages and disadvantages of involving college policy debaters in high school debate activities and competitions.

The researchers developed two versions of the instrument modeling a format designed for a similar study assessing the perceptions of high school debaters at the 2001 National Tournament of the National Forensic League. The instrument was slightly modified to reflect the two groups to which it was directed. (4) An initial draft of the instrument was field-tested with a group of current and former debate coaches for clarity and face validity. Several changes were made to reflect their suggestions. The instrument also was reviewed by representatives of the National Forensic League and found to be acceptable for distribution at the 2002 National Tournament.

Procedures

The surveys were distributed, sent, or emailed to the population of NFL District Chairs and representatives of state high school activities associations. Once the 87 completed surveys were collected, the data were coded and sorted. Both quantitative and qualitative data were examined.

The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to determine central tendencies among the population. The reliability of the Likert-type data was confirmed using Cronbach's alpha (a = 0.74). Beyond frequencies, data were...