Bridge research

[Hanoi5]

I'm currently trying to make a paper on why should bridge be included in a curriculum. I once saw this news-bit in ACBL's bulletin about a research which showed how some student learning and playing bridge fared much better than those who didn't in their school tests. I have heard that some universities have bridge as part of their subjects that can be taken and some schools in the Netherlands and UK teach minibridge to kids: what is their pedagogical/research basis for that?

 

Any help on this matter will be greatly appreciated.

[Ant590]

A quick google scholar search suggests that more research has been done looking at bridge's effect on elderly people than youngsters (Smith & Hartley, 1990), although some work has been done looking at relative bidding processing times for different age ranges (Charness, 1987).

 

I'm a researcher in mathematics education, and in my opinion your best bet is to look into the mathematical education literature on the "theory of formal discipline". This is basically the idea that studying mathematics helps general thinking skills (see for instance Inglis & Simpson, 2008). I think the link between bridge and this kind of thinking could be argued, of course you would need a properly designed study to give evidence to this claim.

 

Charness, N., (1987) Component processes in bridge bidding and novel problem-solving tasks. Canadian Journal of Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie. Vol 41(2), Jun 1987, 223-243.

 

Inglis, M., & Simpson, A. (2008). Conditional inference and advanced mathematical study. Educational Studies in Mathematics , 37, 187-204.

 

Smith and Hartley J Gerontol (1990) The Game of Bridge as an Exercise in Working Memory and Reasoning. The Journal of Gerontology, 45, 233-238

[hrothgar]

Back when I was a graduate student, I had the pleasure of teaching Probability and Statistics to sets of undergraduate economics majors.

 

Almost all of my applied examples involved gambling (typically Blackjack). (I actually got in trouble when some of my students started calling the class Blackjack 302)

 

This shouldn't be too surprising. The origin of Statistics as a serious discipline was rooted in mathematicians studying different types of gambling. To this days, many of the core methods are very well suited to problems involving cards, dice, etc. (Think about permutations and combinations, contigency tables, probability distributions, what have you). Once you start introducing more "modern" subjects like game theory and your example space gets even bigger.

 

I think that you can make a strong case that teaching these types of games serves two important purposes:

 

1. It motivates the subject matter

2. It provides a common reference plane when constructing examples

 

With this said and done, I think that Blackjack and Craps are better pedagogic tools than bridge.

[Hanoi5]

Crap being a better pedagogical tool than bridge? I don't think so...

 

Anyway, I believe there's a difference in two terms I didn't explain:

 

1. Bridge as a pedagogical tool: which might be just using bridge to explain some points in a class or anything like it. For this purpose even paper, stone & scissors or tic tac toe might do the trick.

 

2. Bridge as a thought developing tool: which might be what I'm looking for and could be defined as using/teaching bridge with/to young people so that they develop their reasoning, memory, logical thinking, etc.

[Hanoi5]

This Neil Charness guy seems an important source, anyone know him?

[gnasher]

I'm currently trying to make a paper on why should bridge be included in a curriculum.

If you succeed in getting bridge recognised in this way, will it be applied retrospectively?

[PeterGill]

I corresponded with Neil Charness (and other googlable people) on this same topic about nine years ago - he is more interested in chess than bridge, and is a dead-end for your purposes. Ditto most other people from google, based on my studies.

 

Chris Shaw (Dr Christopher Shaw) is The Man. His findings are on the ACBL website at http://www.acbl.org/documentlibrary/news/s...llyspeaking.pdf

and

http://www.acbl.org/assets/documents/about...Test-Scores.pdf

 

However, the full description of his research is even more impressive.

Please email me so that I can give you Chris's full research, or at least his email address so that Chris can email the full information to you. His conclusion that learning bridge at high school improves academic perofrmance is extremely convincing due to the unusual circumstances which led to his research, making it more unbiased, independent and valuable than if a bridge player was asked to undertake similar (biased?) research.

 

Chris is involved with the School Bridge League (SBL) as well as the ACBL. Hanoi5, what country are you in? Vietnam? USA? If the latter, there are numerous resources to assist you. If anyone wants more info about the SBL or about what Chris Shaw did in his research, please post here and I will in reply write more.

I spoke at length to Paula Alford-Johnson of SBL at the Youth NABC at the Washington D.C. Nationals, so I have a pretty good idea of what is going on there.

 

Peter Gill

Sydney Australia

[Fluffy]

hey Peter, I wanna know more!

[barmar]

Crap being a better pedagogical tool than bridge? I don't think so...

For a class on probability, I think it would be. Bridge is a good tool for teaching more general problem solving. Although there's probability involved in bridge, it's often much too complicated, involving imprecise inferences, to be useful as a teaching exercise. It's the other way around: once you have a good background in probability, you may be able to estimate bridge odds better.

[pdmunro]

http://www.masteringbridge.com/article_oreilly.php

[manudude03]

It's mini-bridge but still useful:

 

http://www.cbai.ie/juniorbridge/documents/...earchreport.pdf

[kenberg]

It's mini-bridge but still useful:

 

http://www.cbai.ie/juniorbridge/documents/...earchreport.pdf

Skepticism is instinctual with me but an honest skeptic should listen. This study has every appearance of a real effort at an honest evaluation. It has been several years since it was done, and it would be very interesting to know how St. Paul's views the results after the passage of time. For starters: Are they continuing the program?

 

I sometimes joke that as a child I learned to read by playing Uncle Wiggly and learned arithmetic by playing Monopoly. An exaggeration, of course, but perhaps there is something to it. We didn't play board games in school, however.

[Vampyr]

I read an article once about bridge played in school. In one group bridge was part of the curriculum and in the other it wasn't. The first group earned higher maths scores than the second even years after the bridge programme was discontinued. Unfortunately I dont' remember where I read it or any of the other details.

 

You might want to contact whoever is in charge of bridge education in various federations and see if they have any documentation.

[Hanoi5]

You might want to contact whoever is in charge of bridge education in various federations and see if they have any documentation.

 

Exactly what I intended with this topic but I haven't had any luck with a Dutch, Polish or whatever bridge teacher who can point me there. Do I neeed to write to each federation?

[jikl]

Hanoi5,

 

Get in touch with Peter Gill, he will have the information. (He posted earlier in the thread)

 

Sean

[PeterGill]

Warning - very very long post .... skip to Part Three if you like

 

Part One - An Outsider's Perspective

 

"The League" http://leagueworldwide.org/ is a group of prominent Americans who want to change the world by making "DOING GOOD as much as part of school activity in America (and the world) as SCHOOL SPORT currently is." To do so, they need teachable activities like bridge to take into schools, from which skills such as trust, partnership, personal responsibility, consultation, following a set of rules, cooperation, calmness under pressure, behaviour towards a partner and many others can be learnt at school.

 

With Bill Gates supplying million(s) for school bridge, a subsidiary of The League, the School Bridge League (SBL) http://schoolbridgeleague.org/ and http://www.schoolbridgeleague.org/about-us.aspx was formed. Four American bridge teachers wrote a detailed syllabus which focusses on teaching such skills (trust etc) while learning basic bridge. Two years ago in San Francisco I saw

this syllabus and was told it is available for approved school lessons in countries like USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

 

In the long term, The League and SBL want the future leaders of America and elsewhere to have been educated at school about what "doing good" really is. Via education, they want the mainstream of business and education eventually to understand that doing good makes you feel good, and to promote partnership and teamwork rather than selfishness.

 

I think this is an great idea which could revolutionize the bridge world. Imagine if educational bodies for whole States in USA had SBL lessons at their schools. Then all the kids would know what bridge is, just the rudiments, as they enjoyed being taught how to be better citizens of the world. Those few who became keen on bridge could learn bridge properly (i.e. duplicate bridge) at summer camps or after school or weekend lessons, so that school bridge teaching was no longer clogged up by disinterested kids who are almost being giving baby-sitting by being sent to bridge by their parents.

 

Over the decades as the whole world began to know what bridge is, bridge could be included in movies and TV shows as it ceased to be a mysterious activity to those outside the bridge community. BBO might have to increase capacity to 100,000 or more youths at any time.

 

At about the same time as SBL sprang up, the ACBL closed down its youth bridge sections to save money, but in my opinion this turned out to be a good thing when the ACBL in their place a couple of years later recently employed well-credentialled

people such as Patty Tucker as their youth bridge staff.

 

However, it seems to me that while other ACBL youth bridge initiatives (Youth NABC's etc) have been successful, the SBL languishes. Why? My guesses regarding the SBL are:

 

- poor website design

- inadequate publicity, especially by the SBL, e.g. most of you bridge fanatics have probably never heard of the 2 year old SBL until this post

- lack of a bridge organizer at the top of the tree somwhere in SBL or The League

- SBL not permitting the Gates money to be used to do what is needed for SBL to succeed, ref my Washington D.C story below, i.e. despite provision of $1million, lack of finance provided to appropriate needs

- incorrect assumption that non-bridge players can teach the SBL course

- SBL paying only teachers (if that) and not school bridge coordinators (see below)

- not enough financed teaching of teachers

- SBL and/or League used to have a job vacancy for a Bridge Manager

advertised online, to be based in Newark, but no longer does (going backwards?).

 

Here's an example of what happens. I don't know any of the Washington D.C. people personally, but just from reading the minutes of Washington D.C.'s hard-working intelligent volunteer bridge organizers at the Washington Bridge League (WBL), I think I can see where things start to go wrong, ref below and scroll to Schools and Gates parts of http://www.districtsix.org/WBL/Admin/Minutes.aspx

2005 - Dec

2006 - Feb, Mar, Apr, Jun, July, Dec (ref Treasurer's Report)

2007 - SBL starts - Mar, Apr, May, Sept, Dec

2009 - Oct = so sad but so typical of youth bridge admin all over the world

 

Perhaps I shouldn't point out here where I think things went wrong with so many terrific people doing so much good work in D.C. for the Oct 2009 outcome, but ......

 

I think that with Bill Gates putting in $1 million to school bridge being the trigger for so much activity, the fruitless D.C. attempts for any possible pay for the school bridge coordinator Shawn during 2007, then Bridge in Schools. ACBL and WBL picking up the pieces by doing all the paying that SBL with its millions did not ... good people become disillusioned ... perhaps all over America ... all over the world ...but I'm just guessing and could be wrong.

 

That's what I think happens with youth bridge over and over. Great ideas, good people, youngsters out there who like bridge ... collapse ... such a waste of resources in a world where we almost all play bridge until we die (unlike physical sports, bridge players almost never retire from playing bridge to focus on marketing and promotion or admin) - thus we all have limited time available.

 

Summarizing my view of the SBL - yet another great idea for promoting bridge, with a million dollars provided by Bill Gates, seems to be biting the dust unless some people like you or me get in there *somehow* and do something to rectify a sad situation.

 

On the other hand - the ACBL is doing just fine, really well, in my opinion.

 

Part Two - An Insider's Perspective

 

Kees Tammens or Rosaline Barendregt or her mother (Astrid?) are good contacts who used to be or still are involved in Netherlands youth bridge.

 

Many of the "best" people who've been directly involved in the major minibridge projects in Italy, Netherlands, India and elsewhere say that teaching minibridge hooks youths on minibridge, not on bridge. Youths who win at minibridge are mostly reluctant to switch to bridge at which they lose. Such organizers are often much too busy to re-educate the world on how to promote youth bridge properly. I'm not one of the people I'm referring to here.

 

There are so many things like that that make the whole concept of promoting youth bridge worldwide in need of serious discussion by people with great minds, i.e. people like say Fred Gitelman and Sabine Auken, but such people lead extraordinarily busy lives, so the vast problems of marketing youth bridge outside the existing bridge world continue to be a struggle. It could be done, the problems are surmountable - youth bridge could take off bigtime worldwide - but it would require major enlightenment and time without negative political interference.

 

Another post links to Ed O'Reilly's excellent efforts in Canada. There are others -

to give examples from Africa and Asia: Mohammed Heshmat in Egypt, Sarfaraz Khan in Pakistan, Patrick Huang and David Chu(?)in Chinese Taipei, Tadashi Teramoto in Japan - who have done much good for youth bridge with many of them having great ideas, but the whole area lies untapped on a worldwide basis.

 

I think that for now Hanoi5 would do best by following up the American sources - Chris Shaw and Patty Tucker - ref Part Three below. I don't think the WBF would be very helpful - I'm currently the Secretary of the WBF Youth Committee, so my info is not exactly uninformed.

 

Part Three - from a quick websearch, useful links include

 

http://www.btfy.org/documents/Decade%20of%...th%20Bridge.pdf

I recommend you (Hanoi5) email Chris Shaw at the email address at the end of that link for his full complete information on his study

 

atlantajuniorbridge.net/Documents/AWholeNewDeal.doc is a bit out of date, being written a year or two ago, but Patty Tucker and Atlanta has become the hub of any major forward-going activity for youth bridge. As Owen Lien told me in Washington D.C., in 5 years when North America dominates world junior bridge,

people will look back at 2008 and 2009 as the start of something big in youth bridge, even if it has been largely unpublicized within the bridge community like BBO forums. I agree. I think the doers are too busy doing, to have time to publicize massively.

 

Patty Tucker is worth contacting, via e.g. via

http://www.youthnabc.org/index.php?id=10 or http://www.youthnabc.org/

 

http://youth4bridge.org/ - a Patty Tucker initiative which has replaced the uncool "bridgeiscool website" as the main website of American youth bridge.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS103577+...007+PRN20071205

 

http://www.schoolbridgeleague.org/_sitefil.../Dec%202007.pdf

 

http://www.renoyouthbridge.com/ and many others.

 

Part Four - Some Statistics for the top of the iceberg

 

WBF Youth Pairs Championship (U26) - number of pairs

2001 220 in Poland

2003 189 in Hungary

2006 210 in Slovakia

2008 196 in Beijing with free airfare, free accommodation and free entry

new organization of WBF youth bridge introduced

2009 94 http://www.worldbridge.org/tourn/Istanbul.09/Istanbul.htm

 

American Youth Bridge Championships (U19) - number of pairs

2006 and earlier years 0 (zero)

2007 12 run by SBL in Omaha Nebraska (details available on request)

new organisation of ACBL youth bridge introduced

2008 83 run by Patty Tucker and ACBL in Atlanta

2009 76 run by Patty Tucker and ACBL in Washington D.C.

 

Conclusion : don't knock the ACBL regarding youth bridge right now

 

Sorry that I went all over the place, but for youth bridge, what do you expect?

[gnasher]

It's mini-bridge but still useful:

 

http://www.cbai.ie/juniorbridge/documents/...earchreport.pdf

How useful is this study? I don't really know what I'm talking about, but so far as I can make out, it seems to suffer from several flaws:

 

- The participants had opted to participate and the control group had opted not to. Isn't that a big non-no?

 

- The bulk of the study's evidence consists of subjective views of participants, parents and teachers about improvements in the participants' mental and social skills. Can you imagine any parent or teacher saying "I think little Johnny has become more stupid recently"?

 

- All of the people providing these subjective assessments knew that the child they were assessing had participated. Again, they were unlikely to say that an organised extracurricular activity had had a negative effect.

 

- For this part of the study they didn't ask the same questions of the control group.

 

- The sample size was tiny.

 

Those aren't intended as criticisms of the person who carried out the study - I am sure she was constrained by the available funds, the degree of cooperation that was available from the control group, and by matters of confidentiality. As far as conclusions go, however, it does seem to me that the evidence from the questionnaires was of little value, and that from the objective tests was a long way from being conclusive.

Edited December 13, 2009 by gnasher

[kenberg]

gnasher: I agree that the St. Paul's study is not even remotely conclusive. I really think it would be good to hear what the view is there some seven years later. Surely they have thought more about it.

 

On to Peter Gill. I confess I am one of the many who never heard of the program. In addition ot the problems that you suggest, I am guessing that the program would not get extensive parental support. I live in the extended DC area, I have a ten year old grandson living in Bethesda just outside of D.C. . Talking with his parents, we have discussed with some dismay the lack of physical activity in schools. No gym, or at least very little. Also very little instruction in music and art. In the "solid" courses, no problem. His older sister passed the high school math requirement in seventh grade and she doesn't even like math. He is well on track to do so as well, probably earlier. If the school suggested time out from math to learn bridge, I think there would be a howl from his parents, and from other parents as well.

 

After school bridge, voluntary, might fly. Myself, I wouldn't encourage him to do it. With his sister, I made sure she learned to ride a bike, something that was in danger of being overlooked with all the attention paid to more academic pursuits. The boy likes to fish. If he gave bridge a try and enjoyed it, fine. Teaching it in school? Maybe not.

[cherdanno]

It's mini-bridge but still useful:

 

http://www.cbai.ie/juniorbridge/documents/...earchreport.pdf

How useful is this study? I don't really know what I'm talking about, but so far as I can make out, it seems to suffer from several flaws:

 

- The participants had opted to participate and the control group had opted not to. Isn't that a big non-no?

 

- The bulk of the study's evidence consists of subjective views of participants, parents and teachers about improvements in the participants' mental and social skills. Can you imagine any parent or teacher saying "I think little Johnny has become more stupid recently"?

 

- All of the people providing these subjective assessments knew that the child they were assessing had participated. Again, they were unlikely to say that an organised extracurricular activity had had a negative effect.

 

- For this part of the study they didn't ask the same questions of the control group.

 

- The sample size was tiny.

 

Those aren't intended as criticisms of the person who carried out the study - I am sure she was constrained by the available funds, the degree of cooperation that was available from the control group, and by matters of confidentiality. As far as conclusions go, however, it does seem to me that the evidence from the questionnaires was of little value, and that from the objective tests was a long way from being conclusive.

Actually, all the study claims is that those who improved at mini-bridge also improved at other skills. ("The comparison with the control group did not yield a statistically significant conclusion.") Sounds very much like correlation, rather than causation.

[Hanoi5]

How do I contact Chris and Patty?