Voices in action: learning through debate-based public speaking

This study examined how debate-based learning related to students’ perceived cognitive achievement and their evaluation of a public speaking course at a Vietnamese university. Survey data from 151 second-year undergraduates who completed an eight-week debate-based module were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The model tested whether perceived usefulness, motivation to transfer, and physiological and affective states were associated with cognitive achievement, and whether cognitive achievement was in turn associated with course evaluation. Perceived usefulness and motivation to transfer were both positively associated with cognitive achievement, which was the strongest correlate of course evaluation. Physiological and affective states showed no significant association with either outcome. The study contributes a mechanism-based account of why debate-based speaking courses are evaluated favourably: students report cognitive gains where they judge debate useful and transferable, and it is those perceived gains, rather than attitudes alone, that track course evaluation.