Abstract:
In 1947 the United States Military Academy began
the practice of holding an annual intercollegiate debate
tournament in which schools from all geographical
regions of the United States participated. In order for
a school to participate in the West Point Tournament, it
was necessary for that school to be recognized within
its own region as having a debate team or debate squad
with an excellent record of performance in tournament
competition. The intercollegiate debate programs in
such schools were effective in this sense: each intercollegiate
program at the time of the school's selection
for the West Point Tournament ·had produced a debate team
and/or debate teams which were capable or winning in
tournament competition within the school's geographical
region. From these facts it was recognized that if the
definition of effective debating were limited to mean
"capable of winning; superior on a five point rating
scale, such as is used widely in evaluating debating
performance," the directors of debate whose teams had
participated in the West Point Tournament would represent
some of the directors of effective intercollegiate debate programs in all regions of the United States.
Such a definition of effective debating was therefore
determined, and the schools attending the West Point
Tournament were selected for study.
