And in the End ...: Reflections on Individual Events Forensic Participation

The relationship between participation in collegiate forensic activities and presumed skills, benefits, and successes later in life has typically been implied rather than overt. Far more forensic research focuses on determining what is (or is not) competitively successful (see Burnett, Brand, & Meister, 2003) than on the long term effects, particularly the question of whether people believe they left the forensic activity with skills and experiences that bolstered successes later in life. When the search term learn is entered into the Online Index of Forensics Research (Forensics Index, 2011), just nine entries appear. When the term career is entered, just three articles are offered. However, ties to the educational benefit of the activity are far more likely to be studied, as a search for pedagogy yields 26 articles. Educational outcomes beyond the collegiate experience are inferred in many research offerings within forensic journals, but not nearly enough work has been conducted in the area of forensic education to determine outcomes beyond undergraduate participation. It is possible that a dearth of scholarly investigation in the area hinders arguments to maintain forensic programs at a time of declining financial support for higher education. In an era in which the long-term measure of job placement and subsequent occupational success is critical to justifying academic programs, it is important to note that educational and career benefits are related, but not synonymous concepts. Moreover, educational and career enhancements are sometimes seen as the only two reasons to compete in an activity such as forensics when perhaps there are more advantages to forensic participation (such as increased cultural awareness and global citizenship) that may not directly connect to these two broad distinctions. In addition to uncovering what forensic participants gained through participation at the collegiate level, it is also important to ask whether, in hindsight, forensic participants would opt to participate again, as this could represent an overarching value judgment on the benefits of forensics. This study represents an attempt to bridge the knowledge base in these critical areas. More specifically, this survey-based approach queries former individual events participants who have not competed in at least ten years--an amount of time in which roles as graduate assistants and other fairly temporary forensic positions have presumably ended and long-term cost-benefit analyses of the activity are more likely to be engrained within a person's thoughts. The survey asked participants questions pertaining to the strengths and weaknesses of the individual events forensic experience, as well as directly asking them whether the activity was worthwhile by querying whether the benefits of participating outweighed the drawbacks. RELATED LITERATURE Few individual events studies have focused on the direct and indirect benefits of involvement (see Ryan, 1998). Scholars who have studied the benefits of forensic participation focused more on the immediate rewards and awards than on the skills, traits, and possibilities afforded to graduates after their forensic careers. Nonetheless, there appear to be some areas that speak to the ultimate demonstrative effects of collegiate individual events competition including: (a) career training, (b) forensics as laboratory, and (c) wellness. All forms of competitive speaking are criticized for the bubble in which the events often operate (Billings, 2001). However, individual events seem to receive more critical reports of the relationship between what happens at a competition and what inevitably occurs in the world outside of it, perhaps because the direct clash of argument found in NDT/CEDA debate seems directly applicable to law and political professions whereas some individual events, particularly oral interpretation, struggle to offer such direct connections. …