If schools implement a formal chess program at the appropriate age levels, will there be discernible results in terms of developing stronger cognitive abilities? This has been an age-old discussion. The Knight of Chess Academy has published some findings on this topic on its website:

Chess lovers have long contended that chess should be a valuable classroom tool. It can provide an intellectually stimulating, rewarding activity, but it can also teach discipline, concentration, planning and all the other good things that go into successful chess.

In 1977, however, the National Institute of Education (NIE) argued against this position, saying in effect that good students and good chess players tend to be the same group simply because they are more intelligent and more intellectual than their classmates. NIE contended that transfer of skills is minimal, arguing that time spent on one skill detracts from the learning of another.

Some months later, Dutch scholar Adriaan de Groot wrote a rebuttal of NIE’s position basing his arguments on a careful two‑year study in Belgium. Now, thanks largely to Harry Lyman of Massachusetts, in behalf of the Massachusetts Chess Association and the American Chess Foundation, the Flemish source of de Groot’s argument has been translated into English.

The Belgian study was the doctoral thesis of Johan Christiaen, titled "Chess & Cognitive Development." It was a carefully controlled experiment with 20 students in the fifth grade in 1975, following them through the sixth grade the next year. As might be expected of a foundation for a doctorate in psychology, the test was carefully designed and executed, complete with a control group and other features of good experimentation.

Christiaen’s aim was to use chess to test Jean Piaget’s theory about cognitive development, or intellectual maturation. Piaget holds that an important growth period occurs approximately between the ages of 11 and 15. In this stage, the child moves beyond physical trial and error and begins hypothesizing and deducing, developing more complex logic and judgment. In Piaget’s terms, the youngster moves from the "concrete" stage to the "formal" stage.

Piaget further contends that the environment of a child can speed up or slow down the maturation. So Christiaen proposed to vary environment with either chess or no chess. If chess were the significant variable between two groups of youngsters, any significant difference in the development of students could be attributed to enrichment brought by chess to their environment.

And it worked! In the words of Harry Lyman, "Learning chess makes kids smarter in the classroom."

I would prefer to base conclusions on a larger sample size than 20 kids in each side of the study. But when I look at some of the worthless stuff taught in public schools today, it seems like a no-brainer to include some type of challenging cognitive game that might engage the kids and move them in a positive direction. In that respect, you would have to pick chess over checkers! (And over most other alternative games in my opinion.)

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