Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Creativity is the ability to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, andto generate solutions. The present study, funded by Indian Government, analysed the effect of one year chess training programon the creativity of school-going children of both genders. A pre-test post-test with control group design was used. Thesample comprised 64 children: 32 children each in experimental (Mean age=11.86, SD=1.44) and control (Mean age=12.03,SD=1.14) groups. Children in the experimental group underwent weekly chess training with Winning Moves Chess Curriculum.Creativity was assessed by Indian adaption of Wallach-Kogan Creativity Test. Pre–intervention equivalence of the two groupswas established. Independent t test analysis revealed that the experimental group had statistically significant gains in totalcreativity and Instances and Alternate Uses subtests compared to the control group. The authors conclude that systematic chessintervention increases creativity in children. The educational implications are significant.