“Because it trains my mind”: Assessing the cognitive and scholastic effects of chess instruction in primary schools of the Soweto Township, South Africa

Summary:

Despite the progress made since the adoption of the Education for All Agenda, one finding by the EFA Global Monitoring Report seems particularly discouraging: In 2014, 130 million children had not mastered basic skills, such as reading or fundamental math, despite having spent at least four years in school. Drawing attention to the fact that despite the considerable emphasis placed on ensuring access to education, safeguarding its quality has been attended to too a much lesser extent. Thereby neglecting "how much and how well children learn and the extent to which their education translates into a range of personal, social and developmental benefits" (EFA-GMR Team 2004a: 4). Whilst some children leave school not having mastered basic skills, even more lack soft skills essential for their everday and particularly their working life in the future.

Internationally, "traditional" policies for better learning have focused on enlarging the teacher workforce, improved teacher training, extending class time, moving towards more child-centered pedagogy, first language instruction, better-quality teaching materials, renovating facilities, and decentralizing and ameliorationg school governance. The Republic of South Africa follows this trend by aiming at a systemic improvement of the entire education system.

Yet, against the backdrop of low educational quality and inertia of systems reform, alternatives need to be identified that – in the meantime – are able to ameliorate the learning situation in a timely and effective manner. Since the 1970s, chess teachers and masters have claimed that methodically chess lessons might be an apt choice to increase learning outcomes. Since then, a variety of methodically diverse studies and reports have reported volatile effects of chess in the scholastic context, such as improvements in problem-solving skills, creativity, critical thinking, and better academic performance. Critical studies are rather sparse and focus (justifiably) on the methodological shortcomings of the research undertaken and their over-reliance on commonsense theory. With regard to regional relevance, examining the effect in a developmental country setting has, hitherto, been largely neglected.

But in the setting of development countries, where many governments struggle with low educational quality, the potential of chess as a means to ameliorate learning outcomes becomes particularly interesting. Given the postulated effect of chess on cognitive abilities and consequently learning output, an introduction of methodical chess lessons could serve as an effective interim solution and/or addition to the slow systemic reform of education structures. Chess instruction is easy and fast to implement and postulated to reach significant results within a few months or even weeks of training. Furthermore, its cost-efficiency makes it attractive for schools with a limited amount of funds or resources. Its appropiateness to also realize improvements with disadvantaged or at-risk learners adds to the argument of being of particular interest for developing countries.

Filling the gap with regard to developmental context, theory-led invenstigation, and extensive documentation on methodology, the thesis presented in this paper sought to answer the research question whether the introduction of methodical chess lessons in South African township schools could positively influence the cognitive abilities and learning outcomes of the students. To test these hypotheses, a mixed-method approach was opted for to assess current performance and development over time. Most centrally, 90 students in the township schools were tested on selected subtests of the "Snijders-Oomen Non-Verbal Intelligence Test Revised 5½-17", measuring their cognitive abilities with regard to abstract and concrete thinking. Operationalizing previous and current performance, their scholastic records were furthermore analyzed. Qualitative semi-structured interviews with their chess instructors complemented the analysis.

Most importantly, results of the study indicate that the sample students receiving methodical chess instruction score higher in all performance categories vis-à-vis their non-chess playing counterparts. For their average performance on the cognitive skills test used as well as their average school performance, this effect if statistically significant, and supports the research hypotheses. Morevover, playing chess on a regular basis outside of school, significantly impacts cognitive abilities. Mere knowledge of chess, in the absence of methodical instruction, fails to produce this effect. This strengthens the assumption that the process of teaching chess is an important determining factor when evaluating chess' impact on learners.

However, a major limitation to this study is posed by its post-test only quasi-experimental design, resulting in a lack of full control over a possible (self-)selection effect. Whilst it cannot be ruled out completely, that those students with previously better performance have either opted for or were assigned to the chess class, various control mechanisms were able to lessen the assumption of such a bias. Most prominently, chess instructors unanimously reported tangible development in their learners, both, in comparison with their prior abilities, and with other students in the school.

An unexpected finding was the emphasis of the development of attitudes, such as discipline and motivation, that was used by the teachers to explain major differences between chess and non-chess playing learners.

Whilst this research points into the direction that the chess enthusiasts' claim to of educational benefits is also applicable in a development country setting, more comprehensive assessments are necessary. If those results confirm and extend findings hitherto presented, South Africa would prove to be a prime example of application, as the country is both in need of low-cost, timely, and innovative strategies to ameliorate learning outcomes and exhibits fruitful framework conditions for integrating chess into its school realities.