Analysis on math success of secondary school students playing and not playing chess (Sakarya province sample)

Abstract

The aim of this research is to analyze the contribution of the secondary level chess in the success of math lesson by comparing end-year math scores of the secondary school students playing and not playing chess. The research is a relational screening model and the research data are composed of end-year math scores in promotion sheets of the students. Thereby, the research group is composed of totally 274 students - 200 males and 74 females - studying at 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades in 5 secondary schools selected from the central districts of the city of Sakarya at the end of 2014-2015 school years. SPSS 22.0 statistical software package was used and the significance level was taken as p< 0.05. The obtained data was handled within the scope of descriptive and inferential statistics, and t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used. A significant difference was found out between the end-year math scores of the students playing and not playing chess in favor of the playing ones. No significant difference was found between the end-year math scores of the students playing chess in relation to their genders and grades.