Studies focusing on debate as pedagogy have been gaining attention recently. However, most research has employed policy debate, which is a traditional debate style. Parliamentary debate, which is an impromptu debate style, has been recently gaining popularity worldwide. As minimal research exists on parliamentary debate as pedagogy, the present study examined the correlations between parliamentary debate participation, communication competence, communication apprehension, argumentativeness, and willingness to communicate. Moreover, this study aimed to investigate the unique characteristics of communication variables and correlations with the experience of participating in a parliamentary debate in a Japanese context, an area that interests many scholars. The results showed some differences in correlations between Japanese and United States samples, which was explained by analyzing a trait of Japanese culture that is characterized as highly contextual. Regarding the correlations between communication variables and parliamentary debate participation, significant differences were found for all variables except for communication competence, where less communication apprehension, more argument approach, less argument avoidance, and more willingness to communicate were observed compared to non-debaters. Finally, the study findings revealed that those with parliamentary debate experience obtained lower scores for communication apprehension and higher scores for argumentative approaches compared with those who did not have such experience; the effect sizes were smaller in women than men. These findings suggest that parliamentary debate participation is an effective way to foster communication variables.

关注辩论作为教育学的研究最近引起了人们的关注。然而，大多数研究都采用政策辩论，这是一种传统的辩论方式。议会辩论是一种即兴辩论方式，最近在世界范围内越来越受欢迎。由于对议会辩论作为教育学的研究很少，本研究考察了议会辩论参与、沟通能力、沟通恐惧、争论性和沟通意愿之间的相关性。此外，本研究旨在调查沟通变量的独特特征以及与在日本背景下参与议会辩论的经历的相关性，这是许多学者感兴趣的领域。结果显示，日本和美国样本之间的相关性存在一些差异，这是通过分析日本文化的高度语境特征来解释的。关于沟通变量和议会辩论参与之间的相关性，除了沟通能力之外，所有变量都发现显着差异，与非辩论者相比，沟通恐惧较少，辩论方式较多，回避辩论较少，沟通意愿较高。最后，研究结果显示，与没有议会辩论经验的人相比，有议会辩论经验的人在沟通恐惧方面得分较低，在辩论方法方面得分较高；女性的效应小于男性。这些发现表明，参与议会辩论是促进沟通变量的有效方式。