The idea, put to the test.
Long before Math & Chess Consulting, Dr. Berkley studied whether chess instruction could measurably improve critical thinking and math achievement in developmental mathematics students — and wrote up exactly what he found.
“The Impact of Chess Instruction on the Critical Thinking Ability and Mathematical Achievement of Developmental Mathematics Students”
An honest look at what changed — and what didn’t
The research combined a controlled experiment with in-depth student interviews. Here’s what stood out.
Math achievement improved
Students who received ten weeks of chess instruction showed measurable gains in mathematics achievement compared to a control group that received none.
Critical thinking: a mixed result
Chess instruction didn’t produce a statistically significant jump on the standardized critical-thinking measure — though chess ability and critical thinking did show a weak positive correlation.
Students felt the connection
In follow-up interviews, students described real links between chess, thinking skills, and their math coursework — even where the numbers told a more cautious story.
Memorization still mattered most
Students themselves pointed to rote memorization, more than critical thinking, as what actually drove their math performance — an honest, student’s-eye check on the theory.
A rigorous, mixed-methods approach
The study used a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design. An experimental group of twelve developmental math students received chess instruction once a week — eighty minutes a session — for ten weeks, while a control group received none. Afterward, six students were interviewed in depth to understand how they experienced the connection between chess, critical thinking, and their math coursework firsthand.
Read the research for yourself
The complete 232-page dissertation is available through ProQuest, or read the free abstract on ERIC, the U.S. Department of Education’s research database.