The DOI matches its Crossref record.
The power of in-class debates
Abstract
The students in three sections of a class rated their knowledge and identified their view before and after each of five in-class debates. The degree of self-reported knowledge was significantly different after four of the five debates. Between 31% and 58% of participants changed their views after participating in or observing each debate. Some changed their opinion even when they defended the side consistent with their original view. Despite their fears of participating in a debate, prior to the first debate, approximately 75% of the participants stated that they would consider using debate as an instructional strategy, and after the debates, this increased to about 85%. In both instances, males were more likely to respond positively than were females.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Case-based learning encourages students to apply theoretical knowledge to realworld situations, while debate-based learning enhances argumentation skills and cognitive flexibility [13].”
From Systematic literature review on critical thinking in higher education (2025) · cites this paper as [13]
In the citing paper
“Case-based learning encourages students to apply theoretical knowledge to realworld situations, while debate-based learning enhances argumentation skills and cognitive flexibility [13].”
From Systematic literature review on critical thinking in higher education (2025) · cites this paper as [13]
Citations
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 26
- 10.1080/00028533.2000.11951646 · DOI
- 10.1177/027347538700900303 · DOI
- Bonwell, C., 1991, Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom
- 10.1207/s15328023top2602_5 · DOI
- 10.1007/s11162-005-8150-9 · DOI
- Combs, H., 1994, Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 5, 57
- 10.1080/03634529109378860 · DOI
- 10.2307/1318721 · DOI
- 10.1207/s15328023top2001_7 · DOI
- Freeley, A., 2005, Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making, 11th
- Garrett, M., 1996, Nurse Educator, 21, 37, 10.1097/00006223-199607000-00015 · DOI
- 10.1207/s15328023top0803_11 · DOI
- 10.2307/1317631 · DOI
- 10.1080/02615470500182132 · DOI
- Jugdev, K., 2004, Online Cl@ssroom, 1, 4
- Keller, T., 2001, Journal of Social Work, 37, 343
- Meyers, C., 1993, Promoting Active Learning: Strategies for the College Classroom
- 10.1207/s15328023top1204_5 · DOI
- 10.2307/1555673 · DOI
- 10.1177/0273475305280533 · DOI
- Scannapeico, F., 1997, Journal of Dental Education, 61, 995
- Schroeder, H., 1983, Journal of Business Education, 58, 266
- Snider, A., 2002, Many Sides: Debate Across the Curriculum
- 10.1080/01463378609369663 · DOI
- 10.1111/j.1746-1561.1997.tb03427.x · DOI
- 10.3200/JOEB.81.6.315-320 · DOI
Cited by
Systematic literature review on critical thinking in higher education
Rothinam, N., Vengrasalam, R., Naidu, S., Nachiappan, S., & Jabamoney, S. (2025) · Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology · doi:10.55214/25768484.v9i5.7377 · Cited by 21
Metadata
- Authors
- Kennedy, R. R.
- Affiliations
- Bloomsburg University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kennedy, Ruth R.
- Venue
- Active Learning in Higher Education
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2009-11
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 225-236
- ISSN
- 1469-7874 (ISSN-L)
- 1741-2625
- OpenAlex
- W2114736757
- Cited by
- 127
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 8.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Active Learning in Higher Education (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Innovative Teaching Methods
- Social Sciences › Education › Innovative Teaching Methodologies in Social Sciences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods
- Keywords
- self-reported knowledge, opinion change, teaching methods, student perceptions, gender differences, active learning
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The power of in-class debates. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1177/1469787409343186
- The paper
- Kennedy, R. R. (2009). The power of in-class debates. Active Learning in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787409343186
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
