Using chess as an educational tool to promote school readiness in historically disadvantaged schools in the West Rand

Abstract

In this thesis a quantitative approach involving a quasi-experimental design was used to study the effect of chess classes on the cognitive and intellectual development of Grade R learners in Gauteng. The research comprised two interrelated stages, both with control and experimental groups but no randomisation. In the first stage, chess instruction as a treatment factor was investigated in a standard Quintile 5, public school. A sample (N=64) was drawn from a single school, with two groups, an experimental group receiving chess instruction over a 40-week period and a control group not exposed to any chess instruction during this period. The groups were assessed at a pre and post level using the Junior South African Individual Scales instrument to determine whether the chess instruction had an effect on their intellectual development. A repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed statistically significant differences between the group means on the Performance intelligence and the Global intelligence scales, suggesting a positive effect of chess instruction on some aspects of cognitive development over time, but the magnitude of the effect was small. In the second stage, the study was extended to investigate the practical application of a chess intervention in a developmental context involving groups of schools (control versus experimental) with a total sample size of (N= 122). The children were assessed using the multilingual Aptitude for School Beginners' group test to establish the effect of chess instruction on scholastic development, but a repeated, multivariate analysis revealed no positive interaction between chess instruction and group over time. A qualitative comparison between the two groups of schools suggests that the teaching environment was not homogeneous as in stage 1, but quite heterogeneous with regard to cultural aspects such as the language of tuition, as well as the teachers' ages, educational experience, qualifications, and working environments. Evidently, in the second stage environmental variables had a greater impact on the children’s cognitive development than the chess instruction as such. It is recommended that future research further explore the effect of environmental and school-based conditions in the investigation of the effect of chess on the cognitive development of young children.