A Study of Ballot Feedback from Professional and Nonprofessional Debate Judges.

Variations in scoring and feedback provided by professional and nonprofessional debate judges were studied using 197 ballots from the six preliminary rounds of the Big Sky Intercollegiate Forensic Tournament in 1971. Results indicated no significant difference in the sides (affirmative or negative) awarded the decision by the two groups of judges. However, nonprofessional judges awarded significantly more quality points to both individuals and teams than did professional judges. Nonprofessional judges were also less likely to provide written feedback to the debaters, wrote shorter comments when they did provide feedback, and relied more heavily upon nonsubstantive, evaluative comments. There was no evidence to suggest that the nonprofessional judges were incompetent to judge the debates, but they may have been less secure about their duties. (AA)