Online Debate: Where do we go from here? Carly Watson Director of

Online Debate: Where do we go from here? Carly Watson Director of Debate, Michigan State University

Background MSU’s debate camp – the Spartan Debate Institute – began experimenting with online competitions and instruction in summer 2019 Original plans for 2020 SDI included a hybrid option for students What promise did we see in online programming? Program Design Accessibility Flexibility Logistics COVID-19 raised important questions about the future of online debate

Methodology Used MSU’s survey platform – Qualtrics – to distribute “Midyear Online Debate Survey” over seven days 176 responses Affiliation primarily with policy debate (76.9%) Respondents skewed younger (79.5% were 34 or younger) and while, there was some racial diversity, respondents who reported their race as black were only 4.0% of respondents (suggesting under-sampling relative to the general population) Topics: Experience with online debate before COVID-19 Experience with online debate during COVID-19 travel restrictions Opinions about what tournaments should look like after COVID-19

Results: Where We Are Strong support for the value of online debate 87.9% of respondents selected “Strongly Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” when asked if they felt that online debate competitions were valuable options for the debate community

Results: Where We Are Support based on online debate being beneficial for geographically isolated schools and schools with lower budgets 83.7% of survey respondents said that they “Strongly Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” that online debate competitions are importation for geographically isolated schools 80.7% of survey respondents said that they “Strongly Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” that online debate is important for schools with lower budgets The largest concern with online debate competitions was a loss of community. 83.1% of respondents said that they “Strongly Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” that online debate competitions damage the community aspects of debate

Results: Where We Are Does online debate “increase access”? 74.7% of respondents said that they “Strongly Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” that online debate competitions increase access 50.0% respondents “Strongly Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” that online debate competitions are important for Urban Debate League Schools (only 10.8% “Strongly Disagree” or “Somewhat Disagree” with that statement)

Results: Now What There is support from survey respondents for online debate competitions to continue after COVID-19 The survey asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement “Online debate competitions should be eliminated after travel restrictions are eased” and 59.4% selected “Strongly Disagree” or “Somewhat Disagree” with that statement (as opposed to 31.1% that “Somewhat Agree” or “Strongly Agree”) Little support for proposals using online tournaments for either regional tournaments or larger tournaments (e.g. all regional tournaments are online and larger tournament are held in person) Some support for “hybrid models” (e.g. letting judges or competitors participate remotely at “in-person” tournaments) 52.7% of survey respondents said that they “Strongly Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” that judges should be able to participate at in-person tournaments online and 49.1% said that they “Strongly Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” that competitors should be able to compete at in-person tournaments online

Results: Now What Some consensus around a “mix” of tournaments being online 52.7% of survey respondents selected “Strongly Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” that some regional tournaments and some larger tournaments should be held online and some should remain in person.

Closing Thoughts Survey shortcomings and space for additional research Uncertain budgets after COVID-19 Recommendations for future online debate: Additional resources/attention are needed to address hardware gaps (e.g. lack of reliable internet) More deliberate focus on preserving the community aspects of debate is required More exploration needed on “hybrid” models (e.g. should they have to be separate divisions) Additional Resources: Blog Post & Raw Survey Results SDI webinar with current high school debaters and current coaches reflecting on online debate

Thank you! Carly Watson [email protected]