Speak Up!: A Quantitative Exploration of the Long-term Impacts of Competitive Forensics
| dc.contributor.advisor | Hanson, Trudy | |
| dc.creator | Lawton, Michael Christopher | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2016-01-19T19:35:37Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2016-01-19T19:35:37Z | |
| dc.date.created | 2015-08 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2015-12-04 | |
| dc.date.submitted | August 2015 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2016-01-19T19:36:08Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | Aristotle wrote about three genres of speaking: deliberative, forensic, and epideictic. Drawing on the teaching of Aristotle, the field of forensics was born, focusing on public speaking and debate as competitive events. Forensics is an over-century old activity that has grown with education in mind. This study utilizes quantitative research methods to analyze the long-term impacts of forensics participation. Former competitors completed a total of 381 surveys, answering a range of questions set to gauge the viability of the skills gained through forensics. The research question for this study seeks to identify what the long-term impacts of forensics, if any. The results supported the research question and all three hypotheses: forensics offers an immense amount potentially positive benefits that can impact a student far beyond their competitive eligibility. With ten skills presented in the Likert-type questions, between 83.5%-98.9% of respondents agreed that forensics has benefitted a specific skill set. Only two of these categories, networking and organization, rated below 94% agreement. An independent samples t-test exposed that women were more likely to perceive positive impacts on organization than men. A one-way ANOVA revealed a significant difference in perceived research abilities between those who competed in high school and college, as compared to high school-only competitors. The evidence of the positive long-term impacts of forensics participation on career success offers a strong justification for the continuation of forensics programs. | |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11310/36 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.subject | Forensics | |
| dc.subject | Public speaking | |
| dc.title | Speak Up!: A Quantitative Exploration of the Long-term Impacts of Competitive Forensics | |
| dc.type | Thesis | |
| dc.type.material | text | |
| thesis.degree.department | Communication Studies | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Communication | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | West Texas A&M University | |
| thesis.degree.level | Masters | |
| thesis.degree.name | M. A. |