Many teachers use chess as a vehicle to teach critical thinking skills. They stress to students that learning how to think is more important than learning the solution to a specific problem. Through chess, pupils learn how to invent creative solutions to problems. They learn 'how to analyze a situation by focusing on the important factors. Chess is effective because it is self-motivating.
Verbal fluency is an individual's ability to generate a large number of ideas with words.
Flexibility represents a person's ability, to produce a variety of types of ideas, to shift from one approach to another, or to use a variety of strategies. Originality is skill at producing ideas that are different from the obvious. It is important to note that all scores reported for the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking are standard T-scores. These scores were all based on creative thinking norms established for junior high school students. Summary Table 4 sheds some light on this question.