Speaker dynamics in Zimbabwe tertiary institutions Debate

Mlungele M. Nsikani1*& Zimazile N. Bango2

1. Stellenbosch University. P. Bag X1 Matieland.7602. South Africa
2. National University of Science & Technology. PO Box 939. Ascot. Bulawayo. Zimbabwe
*mlungele@sun.ac.za
Received: 25/10/2015; Accepted: 05/11/2015
Referencing: Nsikani, M., M. & Bango, Z., N. 2015. Speaker dynamics in Zimbabwe tertiary
institutions Debate. Zimbabwe Journal of Debate 1: 3-5.
About the authors
Mlungele is a national debate champion (2011), founding president and honorary member of N.U.S.T Debate,
and the editor- in- chief of the Zimbabwe Journal of Debate. He is currently doing his postgraduate studies in
Invasion Biology and debating at Stellenbosch University.
Zimazile is a founding member of N.U.S.T Debate and currently an associate editor of the Zimbabwe Journal
of Debate. She is currently working as a Biosafety Officer for the National Biotechnology Authority in
Zimbabwe.

1. Introduction
Zimbabwes tertiary institutions use of the British Parliamentary style of debate is a fairly new
activity as its roots can be traced to 2009. British parliamentary debate has experienced a rapid
growth. Numerous tournaments are being held during the course of the academic calendar year and
these include Debate Open Challenge, N.U.S.T ODI, Pound for Pound Invitational, Great Zimbabwe
open, amongst others. Individual speakers are rated in each round on a scale of 50-100 by the
adjudicators. During and or at tournament end, scores for all the preliminary debate rounds are
collated to form of a speaker tab. The Speakers Tab is used to inform the selection of the
tournaments best speakers amongst, many other awards. The total team score after each round is
then used to reflect the winner of the debate as the winning team must have the highest team score
and give the teams a ranking on the tab. 75 is the average speaker score in a World University
Debate Championship debate, 80 to 85 is exceedingly good and 90 is almost unheard of whilst by the
same token, scores of less than 60% are rare (Nsikani & Shaw 2014).
After each tournament, a tab is produced by the ADj-Core and Tabbing team summarising the teams
and speakers performances at the tournament. The dissemination of the Tab is meant for those who
attended the tournament or participated as speakers primarily to reflect on their performance.
Performance reflection can be done on a daily basis as the preliminary debate rounds progress and
after the tournament as part of overall evaluations.
There is a lack of knowledge on the speaker dynamics of the countrys tertiary institutions debate.
This research was conducted with the aim of answering the following questions (1) what is
Zimbabwes national average speaker score? (2) How do the speakers rank on the scoring range? (3)

What is the participation level of males and females at tournaments? ,and subsequently (4) who are
better speakers between the two sexes?

2. Materials and methods

Speaker tabs from the Debate Open Challenge, Pound for Pound Invitational and N.U.S.T ODI, all
conducted in 2015 were collated, speaker scores and gender of participants recorded. 150
speakers participated in these tournaments. The effect of sex on speaker score was analysed
using Statistica 12.7 (StatSoft).
3. Results
a) Speaker score dynamics
50.00%
45.00%

% of speakers

40.00%
35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
60-64

65-69

70-74

75-79

80-84

Speaker score range

b) Average speaker score

70.4
c) Gender bias in speaker scores
Gender Average score
females 68.93
males
71.06

The effect of gender on speaker score was tested using a one way analysis of variance and it yielded
significant differences with F(1, 148) =8.6777, p<0.01
d) Gender bias in tournament attendance
females
males

32%
68%

4. Discussion
The average national speaker score is in the 70-74 range with 44% of the speakers in this range. This
means that in most of the speeches the arguments are generally relevant, and some explanation of
them given, but there may be obvious gaps in logic, multiple points of peripheral or irrelevant
material. The speaker mostly holds the audiences attention and is usually clear, but rarely
compelling, and may sometimes be difficult to follow. There is a decent but incomplete attempt to
fulfil ones role on the table, and structure may be imperfectly delivered (WUDC speaker scoring
range). This tells us that there is a need to improve the logic of arguments, the structure of
speeches, role fulfilment and be more compelling in order for the speakers to move into the 75-79
range or higher. By virtue of the speaker score being in the 70-74 range, this means that the
speakers are below the average at worlds and their chances of making it out the preliminary rounds
fall way below average (Nsikani & Shaw 2014). Hence in order to have a better chance of breaking at
worlds there is a need to improve the speeches so that the speakers at least fall in the 75-79 range.
There are more males who attend tournaments as compared to females and of those that attend
males out speak them. This may be caused by that females are less exposed to debate and usually
there are less females in debating societies (personal observation). In the drive to empower women
there is a need to recruit more females into the debating societies, make sure that the numbers that
attend tournaments are increased and set up training exercises that are solely addressed to female
speakers. This could be done by setting up quotas of how many females: males can attend
tournaments. Another alternative is to set up a purely womens debate tournament as we have seen
South Africa doing. This is definitely going to go a long way into improving the standard of women
participation in debate.
5. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Pofela Ndzodzi for providing them with the tabs and the anonymous
reviewers who helped improve this work.
6. References
1. Nsikani M. and Shaw D. (2014). Debating and Speaking In Public: A Handbook. National
University
of
Science
and
Technology
Debating
Society
(NUSTDES).
http://ir.nust.ac.zw/xmlui/handle/123456789/397
2. Official worlds scoring range.http://worlddebating.blogspot.co.za/2009/12/koc-wudcdebating-guide-speaker-scale.html