The impact of serious games on science course academic achievement, motivation and problem-solving skills of primary school 4th grade students

Sciences course, one of the important courses instructed in primary schools, in addition to problems such as lack of adequate material and experimental environment, some hazardous and unrepeatable experiments and observations, faces impediments such as the lack of technology in classrooms, while contemporary children are interested in technologies in their daily lives and continuous formal instruction of children who are at the playing age. Based on these problems, previous studies demonstrated that the academic achievements of students in the science course and their motivation to learn sciences were low. One of the approaches of teaching sciences to students by entertainment is serious games which are developed for educational purposes. Serious games are those that do not primarily aim entertainment and are contain serious objectives and content. The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of the serious game developed for this purpose on the academic achievement, motivation for learning science and problem-solving skills of the students. The present study, which was designed with semi-experimental design, a quantitative research method, was conducted using pre-test, post-test and control groups. 4-A, 4-B, 4-D, 4-H, four 4th grade classes from two different primary schools in Eskişehir province were used as the study group; four others (4-A, 4-E, 4-G, 4-E) were assigned as the control group. The study group included 118 students and the control group included students. In this context, a serious game called "Tunnel" was developed based on unit achievements in the "Basic Electric Circuits" topic from the elementary school 4th grade science course curriculum. The 3D game was developed by the researcher with the Unity 3D program. To see the applicability of the game and to determine its contribution to the academic achievements in the science course, the motivation for learning sciences and the skill of problem solving, four weeks of instruction were conducted using the serious game in the study group. The students in the control group were instructed using the textbooks and supplementary books. "Simple Electrical Circuits Achievement Test", "Motivation Scale for Learning Sciences" and "Problem Solving Inventory for Children" were used as data collection tools. SPSS (Statistical Packet for the Social Sciences) software was used to conduct the statistical analysis on the data obtained with the data collection tools and dependent groups t test was used in the statistical process. In conclusion, it was determined that the students in the study group, where the serious game developed by the researcher was used, the academic achievements of the students in "Simple Electric Circuits" topic increased more when compared to the academic achievements of the students in the control group. Furthermore, it was observed that the designed game contributed to the motivation of the students towards the science course and their problem-solving skills more than the students in the control group. Keywords: Primary education, Science instruction, Serious game, Digital game, Simple electrical circuits