The effect of debate technique on 7th grade students' speaking skills attitudes and critical speaking skills

The main objective of this study is to determine the effects of the debate method applied in Turkish lessons of 7th grade students on the students' speaking attitudes and critical speaking abilities. In this experimental study, the paired sample method was adopted, which is a quasi-experimental design with a control group, in which pre- and post-tests were applied to the subjects. The reason why this method is preferred is that the selected sample groups cannot be chosen randomly and the equality of the groups is of critical importance in order to obtain reliable results. The study was conducted with experimental and control groups, each consisting of 24 people. The sample of the study consisted of 7-B and 7-G class students studying at Yıldızkent Borsa İstanbul Secondary School in the Palandöken district of Erzurum in the 2024–2025 academic year. In the study, data were obtained using the "Speaking Skills Attitude Scale" and "Critical Speaking Scale". This examination began with providing information about debate and conducting a sample debate, and continued with conducting pre-tests for the experimental and control groups. In the following process, while the students in the experimental group were taught the course topics using the debate method under the guidance of the researcher, the students in the control group continued their education with the existing educational techniques in accordance with the curriculum. After this ten-week period, post-tests were administered to both groups to complete the study. In this study, Independent Samples t-Test was preferred to evaluate the performance averages of two separate groups. The findings revealed that the group that received education using the debate method made significant progress in both critical speaking and speaking attitudes compared to the group that followed the current teaching techniques.