University students' perceptions of the use of academic debates as a teaching methodology

Recently, there have been numerous innovations in the field of education. Teaching methodology is one of the areas that have received the most attention. Given that context, this paper focuses on academic debate as an activity that fulfils the short-term objectives of individual and collective learning, comprehension, and stimulation, along with long-term objectives that are more focused on research, analysis, and communication processes. Debates motivate students' active learning through preparation, presentation, defence, and classmates' participation and interaction. Those who comprise the debate audience also learn a great deal from their observations. Therefore, this article seeks to alleviate the lack of research on the effects of topical debates by presenting results from various experiences of undergraduate and master's students in the field of tourism. Data collected from post debate surveys of students are analysed to identify their opinions of academic debate through a valuation of not only various items from different theoretical works but also the debates' actual execution. The results show that academic debate presents students with an interesting opportunity to develop diverse and relevant learning and critical thinking abilities through active learning, taking into account the importance of the group's interest in and preparation for the debate topic. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.