Project Details

Project

Topic: Education
Researchers: Dr Aaron Nicholas, Prof. Asad Islam, PhD
Partners: Deakin University
Study Area: Khulna and Satkhira District
Duration: 2014-04-01 to 2015-02-28

#completed

Can Learning Chess Improve Student Creativity? A field experiment in Bangladesh

Method: Quantitative

The overview of the project:

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.



Support Us

Global Development & Research Initiative Foundation (GDRI) is a non-profit research organization registered with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms in Bangladesh.