BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Human Developmental Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1564963
Chess classes and executive function skills in 5-6 years old children: evidence from cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
- 2Federal Scientific Center of Psychological and Multidisciplinary Research, Moscow, Russia
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The aim of this study was to compare executive function skills in preschool children who were engaged in chess classes with those who were not. The participants were 88 typically developing 5-6-year-old children. There were two groups with 30 boys and 14 girls in each group: a group of chess players and a group of non-chess players. The results indicated that children who participated in chess classes exhibited significantly higher visuospatial working memory scores compared to their nonchess playing counterparts (U = 731, p = .05). Moreover, the analysis revealed no significant differences in the characteristics of extracurricular activities undertaken by the two groups. Consequently, the enhanced visuospatial working memory levels observed in the chess-playing group may be due to their participation in chess classes. Taken together, these findings suggest that chess classes may represent a viable method for enhancing visuospatial working memory in preschool-aged children.
Keywords: Executive function skills, cognitive development, chess classes, Extracurricular Activities, Preschool children
Received: 23 Jan 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yakushina, Chichinina and Dolgikh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Anastasia Yakushina, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
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