Competitive debate is an argumentative confrontation about controversial issues in which parties try to convince a jury of the validity of their position. Even if its practice is quite a novelty among Italian educational methods it is used by educational institutions around the world to help students acquire skills such as social competence. However, researchers have found that competitive debates often create contradictory effects to those they are supposed to have. These include systematic hostility or competitive behavior, which are expressions of polarization and conflict rather than of empathy and perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to inquire, through three empirical surveys, whether competitive debate is an effective method for acquiring conflicts and disagreements competence.
With exploratory research, it will be determined whether (a) defending a believed position leads to polarization, (b) defending a disbelieved position leads to de-polarization, and (c) victory or defeat influences polarization or de-polarization. The second survey, with a quasi-experimental design, aims to verify if and how participants in competitive debate tournaments alter attitudes toward communication strategies in conflict situations. Finally, a pre-experiment aims to consider whether (d) debating improves student ability to identify argumentative fallacies.
The results analysis proved that some tournament participants polarized, but that neither victory nor defeat affected this phenomenon. Additionally, the students became less inclined to use controversial communication strategies and more in favor of cooperative communication strategies, even if their ability to identify argumentative fallacies did not improve. These results, therefore, conclude that competitive debate projects promote useful attitudes toward conflict management, and that the didactics of argumentation must be rethought so it can affect the ability to identify major fallacies and thus, become competent in managing disagreements