Description:

Debates are activities used to generate discussion and bring out participant attitudes about violence against women and HIV, similar to Agree/ Disagree/ Not Sure. The facilitator can set up a debate in a few different ways, depending on the group and the topic to be covered:

• 3-minute debate: 1 spokesperson from each point of view has 3 minutes only to argue their position. There is 1 opportunity for rebuttal/ closing statement for each point of view. (Serves as group validation).
  
• Group work debate: Participants divide into groups, based on their position on a specific issue, and have a certain amount of time to prepare their arguments. The teams then debate each other in a semi-structured way, with each participant getting a chance to speak at some point. (Serves as individual validation).
  
• Spontaneous group debate: Participants divide or are divided on different teams representing different viewpoints about an issue. Apart from keeping basic order, the debate that ensues is unstructured. The facilitator’s role is simply to ensure less assertive participants have the opportunity to speak and respect is maintained toward all. (Serves as group validation).

With any of these debate options, one possibility is to generate a controversial topic to be debated, then randomly assign participants to argue “for” or “against” the statement/ topic. The other main possibility is to state the topic and allow participants to self-select whether they are for or against it, forming groups based on true personal beliefs.

Participants generally enjoy debates and do not recognize them as validation methods, which helps them to feel freer to express their opinions than with many other methods.

Note: For more information about using Debates as validation methods, download Training Validation Methods: A how-to guide for assessing participant learning.
 

When to Use:

The 3-Minute Debate method can take 15-30 minutes in total, where the other group debate options require up to 2 hours to explore the topic, depending on time available and what the facilitator is attempting to validate.

Debates yield varied results, if used to validate attitude change. Measuring attitude change is difficult for several reasons, articulated below. Group work debate, where participants choose which side of the debate they wish to argue for, is the best debate type to validate current individual participant attitudes. In this method, each participant must debate and defend their points of view. Debates can also easily be used to validate skills related to defending an argument or explaining/ arguing a particular view.

Note: For more information about using Debates as validation methods, download Training Validation Methods: A how-to guide for assessing participant learning.