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Chess Players Score Higher on Torrance and Watson-Glaser Tests

Preface to the article. The following information was garnered from one of the most accomplished and well-written compiled research studies on the benefits of chess; rightfully named, “The Benefits of Chess in Education”, compiled by Patrick S. McDonald.

Chess Players Score Higher on Torrance and Watson-Glaser Tests

Why did chess players score higher on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking as well as the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal?

  1. Chess accommodates all modality strengths.
  2. Chess provides a far greater quantity of problems for practice.
  3. Chess offers immediate punishments and rewards for problem solving.
  4. Chess creates a pattern or thinking system that, when used faithfully, breeds success. The chess-playing students had become accustomed to looking for more and different alternatives, which resulted in higher scores in fluency and originality.
  5. Competition. Competition fosters interest, promotes mental alertness, challenges all students, and elicits the highest levels of achievement (Stephan, 1988).
  6. A learning environment organized around games has a positive affect on students’ attitudes toward learning. This affective dimension acts as a facilitator of cognitive achievement (Allen & Main, 1976). Instructional gaming is one of the most motivational tools in the good teacher’s repertoire. Children love games. Chess motivates them to become willing problem solvers and spend hours quietly immersed in logical thinking. These same young people often cannot sit still for fifteen minutes in the traditional classroom.
  7. Chess supplies a variety and quality of problems. As Langen (1992) states: “The problems that arise in the 70-90 positions of the average chess game are, moreover, new.
    Contexts are familiar, themes repeat, but game positions never do. This makes chess good grist for the problem-solving mill.”
All of these benefits extend into the following:

  • Raise intelligence quotient (IQ) scores

  • Strengthen problem solving skills, teaching how to make difficult and abstract decisions independently

  • Enhance reading, memory, language, and mathematical abilities

  • Foster critical, creative, and original thinking

  • Provide practice at making accurate and fast decisions under time pressure, a skill that can help improve exam scores at school

  • Teach how to think logically and efficiently, learning to select the ‘best’ choice from a large number of options

  • Challenge gifted children while potentially helping underachieving gifted students learn how to study and strive for excellence

  • Demonstrate the importance of flexible planning, concentration,
    and the consequences of decisions

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