THE ATTITUDE OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TOWARD THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MATHEMATICS AND CHESS

Resumo

Mathematics and chess have much in common. The thinking patterns of mathematicians and chess players are very similar, so it is not surprising that mathematicians have had considerable success in chess competitions. Former world chess champions Lasker and Euwe were professional mathematicians, while Tal and Karpov demonstrated exceptional mathematical abilities in their youth. Prominent mathematicians such as Euler and Gauss engaged with combinatorial problems using chess pieces on the board—the former with knight’s tours and the latter with queen placement problems. By nature, mathematical problems on the chessboard touch upon various mathematical disciplines. Initially, these problems were mostly of a combinatorial, arithmetic, or geometric type. Later, chess-related problems began to be approached from the perspective of graph theory and cybernetics as well. All of this suggests a strong connection between chess and the teaching of mathematics. Global research on this issue has produced conflicting views. Some believe that playing chess stimulates cognitive development and thus also enhances learning in mathematics, while others refute that claim. This raises the question: what do high school students in our country think about it? Therefore, the subject of this research is the opinion of high school students about the connection between certain mathematical disciplines and chess, with the aim of determining how much this connection influences their interest in introducing chess as an elective subject in high school curricula. Our hypothesis is that students will highly value the correlation between chess and mathematics, and thus with learning mathematics, and that they will express support for the introduction of chess into some form of school instruction. The research was conducted in the 2023/24 school year on a sample of 137 students from the “Josif Pančić” Gymnasium in Bajina Bašta. A Google questionnaire was administered in which students assessed the relationship between mathematical disciplines and chess. The responses particularly emphasized the connection between chess and mathematical logic and combinatorics, while nearly two-thirds of the students expressed a positive attitude toward the introduction of chess as an elective subject in high school programs.

Dados da obra

Tipo

Artigo

Periódico

Istraživanja u Pedagogiji, v. 15, n. 1, p. 217-230

Editora

Preschool Teacher Training College "Mihailo Palov"

Ano

2025 (2025-06)

Idioma

en

Palavras-chave

mathematics teaching; chess; problem-based learning; elective subject

Temas

Geometria, Probabilidade

DOI

10.5937/istrped2501217z

ISSN

2217-7337, 2406-2006

Acesso

Acesso aberto

Fontes

DOAJ — Directory of Open Access Journals

Na Biblioteca desde

01/10/2026 · verificada em 03/10/2026