“The Effects of Chess Instruction on Academic and Non-Cognitive Outcomes: Field Experimental Evidence from a Developing Country”, Asad Islam, Wang-Sheng Lee, Aaron Nicholas2021-05-01 (chess psychology)⁠:

• We investigate the benefits of an intensive chess training program.

• Chess training reduces the level of risk aversion.

• It improves math scores and reduces the incidence of time inconsistency.

• No evidence of statistically-significant effects on other academic and non-academic outcomes.

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 conclusive once we account for multiple hypothesis testing. We do not find any evidence of statistically-significant effects of chess training on other academic outcomes, creativity, and attention/focus.

[Keywords: chess training, math, non-cognitive outcomes, risk, randomized experiment]