Students' Perceived Benefits of Chess: Differences across Age and Gender

The purpose of this study was to determine differences in students' perceived benefits of chess by gender and age after being exposed to chess during instruction for an entire academic year as part of a Chess in Schools initiative in a southeastern state of the United States. Data were collected during the 2017-2018 academic year. The sample consisted of 1,286 students across elementary, middle, and high school levels. Data were collected using a retrospective pretest survey. Seven constructs of the students' perceptions were generated ("increased enjoyment of mathematics," "improvement in academic self-efficacy," "improvement in collaborative skills," "improvement in organizational skills," "enjoyment of chess," "confidence in chess playing ability," and "increased engagement in learning"), and all had high reliability coefficients. Data were analyzed using a two-way multivariate analysis of variance. The results showed that elementary students consistently tended to have higher ratings of perceived benefits than middle and high school students across all constructs. The differences between middle and high school students were low and not statistically significant.