The Shift to Online Tournaments Helped High School Speech and Debate Survive the COVID-19 pandemic

The US lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic forced education to shift to virtual platforms, causing many extracurriculars to suffer. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the transition of speech and debate (forensics) into virtual tournaments led to increases in accessibility due to the removal of travel costs and disability barriers. Conversely, potential harms such as internet and technology inequalities, as well as a lack of supervision, human connectivity, and focus, have been debated as reasons for a decrease in extracurricular interest during the pandemic. To bridge this gap, this paper aims to use statistical analysis to determine the impact of the shift to virtual tournaments brought about by COVID-19 on high school speech and debate participation and accessibility. Results demonstrated an increase in the number of states represented at competitive debate tournaments, while stability was maintained in the relative participation of “rural vs urban” and “small vs large” schools, even as net participation decreased across the board in the aftermath of the pandemic. This suggests that the transition to online tournaments not only allowed high school speech and debate to survive lockdown, but also maintained relative equity and increased accessibility for out-of-state debaters.