Abstract:

Academic debate is an essential tool to develop students’ abilities and skills in communication and debate. Debate in the classroom is effective in helping students learn a discipline and demonstrate the ability to read and write critically.This study aims to investigate nursing student’s perceptions regarding academic debate learning in the first stage of the college of nursing /Hawler medical university.

A descriptive research design was conducted at the college of nursing, Hawler medical university at Erbil city of Iraqi Kurdistan Region, purposive sample of 1st and 2nd years students who attended classroom of academic debate subject in the first year at the college of nursing were involved in the study. 113 students participated in the study, the participation was on volunteer base, with confidentiality and anonymity securing. A structured questionnaire format developed by researchers for data collecting, through distribution of the format to student for filling it by self report technique.

The questionnaire included two parts; first part students’ demographic information which included four items; second part student’s perception regarding academic debate subject included 16 items. Students perception was tested by three rating scale (agree, neutral and disagree). Data was analyzed using statistical package for social science version 18.

Results of the study reveal that majority of students were female, the mean of their age was 19.89 ± 1.520. The highest percentages of them were agreed that the teachers have positive role in leading class discussion and they received course book of the subject. While the lowest percentages agree that the classroom was suitable for group discussion, two third of the students were gotten benefit from academic subject. More than halve of the participants agree that they gain new skills in preparing power point slides, learn how to search information through web sites and it is interest subject for them. There was high significant correlation between students perception about academic debate subject and students levels of education.

Keywords:

Nursing students, perception, and academic debate.