Hey Marcus,

Hope all is well.

You should look at the research from the 1960s and search for "shift of opinion" ballots. There was a time then when some debate folks wanted to move away from the idea of winners and losers in debates, and advocated for no-decision debating for a while. Shift of opinion ballots give the audience a spectrum to mark before and after the debate, or just after. This can be used to sort of say the debate had a measurable effect on audience attitude toward a topic.

Would give you cites, but I'm transitioning from Refworks to Zotero, and my bibs are a mess.  But I think it will be worth it in the end.

Hope to see you soon. 

Your friend,
Steve

On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Paroske, Marcus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hello friends.

 

I know many of you have robust public and/or intramural debate programs on your campus.

 

I was hoping some of you could point me too examples of how you assess those activities beyond things like number of people who participate or attend?  I am more interested in qualitative measures of the success of the events, in the diversity of ways you might define that.

 

If you have some insight, back channel me if you please at [log in to unmask] .  Although, there are no doubt others on the list than can benefit from your experience if you wish to share publically.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Marcus




--
_____
Stephen Llano, Ph.D.
Director of Debate and Assistant Professor, Department of Rhetoric, Communication & Theater
St. John’s University
Queens, NY
718-990-5606(voice) 718-990-2435 (fax)
callto://stevellano -- Skype Me!

"Knit the brows, and a strategem comes to mind." - Lo Kuan-chung, Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

"Poetry is a rival government always in opposition to its cruder replicas." - William Carlos Williams