Investigating the Impact of Chess Play on Developing Brains at Different Levels Of Education By: Daven Rees

If you play chess or other brain-stretching games when you are older

Hypothesis - How can learning chess effectively help students at different levels of education, develop meta-cognitive abilities and mathematical problem-solving capabilities Hypothesis - How effective can learning chess help students, at different levels of education, develop meta-cognitive abilities and mathematical problem-solving capabilities Metacognition is awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.

Why Chess? Chess increases intelligence creativity, Improves higher thinking skills, and when practiced students can show to be among the top in math and science classes. Chess increases intelligence creativity, enhances strategic thinking and enriches problem- solving ability. Furthermore it increases self-esteem. Chess improves and develops higher order thinking skills (that is meta-cognitive skills); in addition youngsters evaluate the actions and results and predict future possibilities. When chess is highly practiced in specific countries, practicing students show ability to be among the top in math and science classes and recognize complicated patterns as well.

THE STUDY By: Farhad Kazemi, Mozafar Yektayar, Ali Mohammadi Bolban Abad Organized by: SciVerse ScienceDIrect A study was taken by SciVerse ScienceDirect in 2012. They took a total of 180 randomly selected students. Of those, 86 school-boy students were randomly selected and they were taught chess for six months, and another group of 94 students were randomly selected for the control group. The subjects were assessed via meta-cognitive questionnaire of mathematical exams. The results indicated that chess students showed more achievement in meta-cognitive abilities and mathematical problem solving capabilities than the non-chess students. These results suggest that we can use chess as an effective tool for developing higher order thinking skills. This study was conducted under clear evidence and 25 different sources.

Non-Chess Player Students Frequency of Participants (Table 1) Chess Player Students Non-Chess Player Students Total: 5th Grade 28 29 57 8th Grade 27 32 59 9th Grade 31 33 64 86 94 180 This study was conducted with male students in these grades in primarily junior high schools in Sanandaji in west Iran.

Meta-cognitive Scores (Avg) Results of independent samples t-test for comparing meta-cognitive score means between chess and non-Chess Players (Table 2) Groups Sample Size Meta-cognitive Scores (Avg) StDev t df p(2-tailed) Chess Player 86 132.75 7.23 5.08 178 0.000 Non-Chess Player 94 125.56 9.93

Results of independent samples (n) t-test for comparing meta-cognitive score means of students at different levels of education (Table 3) Education Level Groups n M StDev t df Significance Level 5th Grade Chess 28 134.80 7.73 2.71 55 Lvl 99% Non-Chess 29 124.57 10.49 p = 0.009 8th Grade 27 133.26 6.81 2.36 57 Lvl 95% 32 126.67 10.26 p = 0.02 9th Grade 31 133.10 7.31 3.76 62 33 125.09 9.30 p < 0.001

Benefits of Chess Focusing Visualizing Thinking Ahead Weighing Options Analyzing Concretely Thinking abstractly Planning A man by the name of J. Meyers says “we have brought chess to school because we believe that it can directly contribute to academic performance. Chess makes children smarter” It can do this by teaching us these following things.F- Children are taught to learn about the advantages of observing & focusing. In addition, children cannot respond to what is happening unless they watch it.V- Children are encouraged to imagine a series of actions before it occurs by training and asking them to visualize and to move 1 piece in their mind and then several moves ahead, developing a better visualization skill. TA- Chess helps develop calmness and attentiveness. Students are more often to think more about there actions, they often ask “If I do this, what may happen later and how can I respond. W- Children may learn they dont haveto express whatever 1st occurs to their mind, they learn to find outother choices and take into account the advantages of diff actions. AC- Students learn to assess the results of particular actions and arrangments. They learn to make decisions based on logic instead of impulse. Ta- Students sometimes are taught to move back from details and focus on the whole picture. They learn to analyze patterns to various related situations. P- Students are taught to define long-term goals and do their best to achieve them. They feel the need to re-evaluate their plans particularly when new improvements change the situation.

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