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CAStLE: The St. Louis Chess Club’s Chess in Education Initiative

Executive Summary

This short briefing document summarizes a 58-minute webinar presented on October 26, 2023 by the St. Louis Chess Club and its research partners. It details their 15-year journey in establishing and researching their comprehensive “chess in schools” initiative. The presentation outlines the club’s strategies for professionalizing instructors, building community partnerships, developing a standardized curriculum, and most notably, the findings of their rigorous multi-year research study, CAStLE (Chess Attainment in Saint Louis Evaluation). Key findings indicate that while less frequent chess instruction in elementary school showed minimal impact, daily chess instruction in junior high led to significant increases in self-efficacy for all students and statistically significant gains in math achievement and reductions in disciplinary infractions for male students. Although arguably light on CIE pedagogy, the initiative serves as an instructive model for integrating chess into the school day and rigorously evaluating its impact.

Main Themes and Important Ideas/Facts

Richard Pointer (St. Louis Chess Club), Dr. Matthew Pepper (Basis Policy Research) and Dr. Brian Kisida (University of Missouri) discussed the following topics.

1) Building a Comprehensive Chess in Schools Initiative:

The objectives for the Saint Louis chess in schools program included:

Professionalization of Instructors

The St. Louis Chess Club recognized the need for professional instructors beyond the typical after-school model. They addressed this by:

  • Developing standards of instruction with 12 competency-based levels, each designed for a semester. Grandmaster Maurice Ashley played a key role in this development.
  • SLCC Chess Coach TrainingCreating a standardized yet flexible curriculum with accompanying lessons, activities, and worksheets to cater to diverse student needs (beginners to advanced). As Richard Pointer stated, this gives instructors “a myriad of activities to choose from depending on what their students needed.”
  • Implementing a three-day teacher training program that includes material engagement, mock lessons, lesson plan writing, and shadowing experienced instructors.

Strategic Partnerships

The club actively cultivated partnerships at various levels:

  • Community Organizations: Engaging with PTOs, PTAs, and organizations like Better Family Life to expand reach.
  • School Districts and Superintendents: Establishing deep relationships to integrate chess into the school day across entire districts. Pointer emphasized the importance of having “in each school a champion for your program.”
  • Corporate and Governmental Funders: Securing grants and donations from companies like Monsanto, Bayer, and state entities.

Expanding Reach Beyond After-School Programs:

Recognizing the limitations of traditional after-school chess, the club focused on:

  • Implementing in-school classes with multiple sessions per week for a full academic year.
  • Targeting students who might not have access to after-school programs due to transportation or funding issues.
  • Engaging students through events like fair festivals and back-to-school nights to generate excitement and inform stakeholders.
  • Organizing scholastic tournaments at regional and district levels to provide opportunities for students to compete and engage further with chess culture.

Community Engagement

The club fostered community engagement through:

  • Summer camps led by grandmasters and club instructors, notably partnering with districts to offer these camps at no cost to students in some areas.
  • Unique events like having US Championship competitors visit community schools.

2) Measuring the Impact of Chess

The “CAStLE” (Chess Attainment in Saint Louis Evaluation) study employed a rigorous research design, specifically a “deferred treatment random assignment multi-year study.” This methodology is crucial for establishing a causal link between chess instruction and student outcomes.

The CAStLE research study components included:

    • Rigorous Research Design: The St. Louis Chess Club partnered with Basis Policy
      Research and the University of Missouri to conduct the CAStLE study. Dr. Matthew Pepper highlighted the importance of moving beyond anecdotal evidence to “say with rigor that we’re seeing these impacts.”
    • Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs): The study employed RCTs at both elementary (classroom-level, once weekly instruction) and junior high (student-level, daily instruction) levels, using a deferred treatment model to ensure all students eventually received chess instruction. Richard Pointer explained the design by comparing it to a medical trial.
    • Measured Outcomes: The study assessed the impact of chess instruction on:
      • Non-cognitive measures: Attendance, disciplinary infractions, motivation, self-management, self-efficacy, school engagement, persistence, and grit (measured through surveys).
      • Cognitive measures: Student achievement scores in mathematics and English language arts (using district benchmark assessments).
      • Long-term educational outcomes: Planned follow-up research on graduation rates and later-life outcomes.

3) Key Findings:

  • Results of from the CAStLE program presentation

    Vertical arrows represent significant results. Horizontal arrows signify no significant results. Source: Source: US Chess video presentation on October 26, 2023. url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3dQYreOmuw&list=PLWz0jCeofD_F_5Gh_gnOdIoxoTIxBBS_f&index=12

    Elementary School: No statistically significant impact was observed on the measured outcomes, likely due to the lower dosage of instruction (once a week for a semester, approximately 12-13 lessons). Dr. Brian Kisida noted, “I think that is asking a lot for any intervention to actually move the needle” with such limited exposure.

  • Junior High School:A statistically significant increase in students’ sense of self-efficacy was found for the full sample. For male students, statistically significant increases were observed in standardized achievement in math scores and reductions in disciplinary infractions. Kisida suggested this might be because “the most at-risk students in those schools tend to be the younger male students” who might have more room for improvement in these areas.

4) Question & Answer Discussion

An audience Q&A discussion took place following the formal presentation. Comments from that discussion follow.

Uniqueness of Chess:

When asked about comparing chess to other extracurricular activities, Dr. Kisida emphasized the potential unique link between chess and “the mathematics achievement.”

Practical Insights for Implementing Chess Programs:

  • Identify a Champion:Richard Pointer stressed the importance of finding someone within the school district who is enthusiastic about chess to advocate for the program.
  • Demonstrate the Benefits: Clearly articulate the value proposition of chess to school administrators, highlighting how it can benefit students.
  • Solve School Needs: Frame chess instruction as a solution to existing school challenges, such as teacher shortages or the need for planning periods.
  • Start Small and Be Flexible: Recognize that implementing such programs is often “piecemeal” and involves various approaches. Smaller, more autonomous school districts might be easier to partner with initially.

Curriculum Availability?

The St. Louis Chess Club plans to make their standardized curriculum and teacher training program available to external organizations within the next year. [Editor’s note: In a subsequent presentation at the 2024 Saint Louis Chess Conference, the Saint Louis Chess Club clarified that their were no plans at that time to offer the curriculum for free to the public. A future release of the curriculum as part of a packaged service was under consideration.]

How many students were in the program?

Response by Brian Kisida: “.. the Saint Louis Chess Club runs … 3,000 to 5,000 student students served per year. In the study itself and the elementary school model we had quite a few more – in the thousands. In the junior high model the number is in the low hundreds. I think we have about a sample size of 130 in the junior high model. That’s just because it’s one school with typically one or two classes per semester. Those classes tend to be somewhere in the range of 15 students each.

5) Other Comments from the Presenters:

  • Richard Pointer on the club’s broader mission (beyond its role as the premier competitive chess venue in the US): “We’re also doing a lot more in schools here in St Louis. We want to share what that looks like and how we’ve built the program. I think it’s exciting to share the lessons we’ve learned and how these things can help you.”
  • Richard Pointer on the standardized curriculum: “What we also should be known for is a standardized chess curriculum that we’ve built out over the last 10 years. Also the professional chess instructors who work inside the school day in many schools across the St Louis region. Sometimes up to 200 hours per week.”
  • Richard Pointer on the mission: “Educate and inspire through chess… Demonstrate chess’s invaluable learning potential for education and students, and we wanted to do that rigorously. That’s the research portion.”
  • Richard Pointer on the importance of in-school programming: “We wanted to do in-school programming, and to do that we had to build partnerships with districts, schools, community organizations, and donors to figure out how to do it beyond that three to five o’clock window.”
  • Richard Pointer on the curriculum’s flexibility: “It gives us a framework to measure student achievement and then finally it standardizes what’s taught, but not how it’s taught. We leave that up to our instructors to try to match the lessons to what their students’ needs are.”
  • Matthew Pepper on the rigor of the CAStLE study: “What we’re excited to talk to you about today is something more rigorous… to be able to say we have taken an academic view and can say with rigor that we’re seeing these impacts.”
  • Brian Kisida on the limitations of prior research: “As far as I know, most of the studies that have seen in the literature review have looked at test scores. I don’t recall any that have been able to look at attendance and disciplinary outcomes.”
  • Richard Pointer on getting started with schools: “One of the things that we found with some of our districts was that they might have a shortage of teachers to cover certain periods during the day… So you’re offering chess instruction during those times that can help them cover the number of periods they have…”

2025 Program Update

Brian Kisida in an update on March 19, 2025 reported no significant changes to the program. “We continue to prepare a paper for submission to a journal. As for future plans, we’re currently in the design phase of CAStLE 2.0.”

[Editor’s note: We will add a link here when available.]

Conclusion

The St. Louis Chess Club has developed a well-researched and useful model for integrating chess into the K-8 school day. Their emphasis on professional development, strategic partnerships, a standardized curriculum, and rigorous evaluation provides valuable lessons for other organizations seeking to implement similar programs. The preliminary findings of the CAStLE study offer promising evidence of the positive impact of consistent, daily chess instruction on self-efficacy. Male junior high students also registered significant improvement for math achievement and disciplinary infractions. The club’s willingness to share their curriculum and insights suggests a commitment to advancing the field of chess in education nationwide.

Author / Editor

Neil Dietsch photoThis article by Neil Dietsch used artificial generative intelligence tools to transcribe an October 23, 2023 webinar video. The transcript was lightly edited for clarity and to add information displayed on Powerpoint slides during the presentation. The edited transcription was then used to generate a summary briefing document using Google’s NotebookLM. Finally, the briefing document was edited to into the final form appearing in this article.