The Effects of Chess Instruction on Academic and Non-Cognitive Outcomes: Field Experimental Evidence from a Developing Country

Asad Islam, Wang-Sheng Lee and Aaron Nicholas

No 12550, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We conduct a randomized field experiment to investigate the benefits of an intensive chess training program undertaken by primary school students in a developing country context. We examine the effects on academic outcomes, and a number of non-cognitive outcomes: risk preferences, patience, creativity and attention/focus. Our main finding is that chess training reduces the level of risk aversion almost a year after the intervention ended. We also find that chess training improves math scores, reduces the incidence of time inconsistency and the incidence of non-monotonic time preferences. However, these (non-risk preference) results are less conclu-sive once we account for multiple hypothesis testing. We do not find any evidence of significant effects of chess training on other academic outcomes, creativity, and attention/focus.

Keywords: randomized experiment; risk; non-cognitive outcomes; math; chess training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D80 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 66 pages
Date: 2019-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-ure
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Published - published in: Journal of Development Economics, 2021, 150, 102615

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Journal Article: The Effects of Chess Instruction on Academic and Non-cognitive Outcomes: Field Experimental Evidence from a Developing Country (2021)
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