An analysis of the attitudes of the teacher candidates towards the game of chess

Abstract

Purpose of this study is to analyze the attitudes of the teacher candidates studying at universities towards the game of chess and determine to what extent these attitudes are affected by some variables. In this study, survey model was used. As data collection tool, "Attitude Scale for the Game of Chess" was used, developed by Sadık et al., having factor loads ranging from .76 to .94, being one-dimensional, consisting of 16 items, with total explained variance of 86 %, and with Cronbach’s Alpha reliability co-efficient of .98. The study group consisted of 451 teacher candidates studying at the university. Research data was analyzed by using IBM SPSS 22.0 program. In analyzing the data, t-test and one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used for frequency independent samples. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the attitudes towards chess did not differ according to gender variable, whereas they showed significant differences according to class and department variables. Findings were discussed in the context of literature, and various suggestions were made about the field of chess education.