The effect of story-based working memory intervention program on working memory capacity and early mathematics competence

In the study, it was aimed to examine the effect of the story-based working memory intervention program on working memory capacity and early mathematics competence. The research was carried out with children aged 60-72 months and their mothers attending independent kindergartens affiliated to the Ankara Provincial Directorate of National Education. The research was carried out with the convergent parallel mixed method, which is one of the quantitative and qualitative mixed research methods. "General Information Form", "Working Memory Scale", "Early Mathematics Ability-3 Test", "Portfolio Evaluation Checklist" and "Semi-Structured Interview Form (Mother)" were used in the research. The independent variable of the study consists of the Story-Based Working Memory Intervention Program applied to the experimental group, and the dependent variable consists of the Working Memory Scale (WMRS) and Early Mathematics ProficiencyTest-3 (TEMA-3), the views of the mothers and the portfolio documents obtained from the children. In the experimental dimension of the research, the quasi-experimental design with pre-test-post-test-permanence test control group was used, and in the qualitative dimension, document analysis and interview method were used. The Story-Based Working Memory Intervention program was applied to the experimental group mice for 35-40 minutes, three days a week and five activities a week for eight weeks. The data obtained were evaluated using appropriate statistical methods. As a result of the research, there was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest mean scores of the children in the experimental group regarding the Working Memory Scale and its sub-dimensions, and there was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest mean scores of the children in the experimental group regarding the Early Mathematics Ability-3 test. According to the results obtained from the evaluation of the documents collected during the implementation of the program, it is seen that the children scored above the average for all stories and the average score they got from the first story to the eighth story increased significantly. In the interviews made with the mothers in the experimental group after the program, the mothers stated that there were changes in both their children and themselves. The mothers expressed the changes that the program made in their children as memory and attention development, mathematics development, interest in mathematics, development in language expression skills and development of homework/responsibility awareness. They expressed the change that the program caused in them as it enabled them to get to know their children better in terms of memory and mathematical competencies, and increased their awareness of spending more effective time at home with their children. They stated that the materials and methods of the program were appropriate and sufficient in physical and contextual terms, and made suggestions for the popularization of the program. Based on the results of the research, feedback was given that the story-based working memory intervention program can be included in preschool education programs as an effective teaching strategy in terms of children's memory development and that more effective guidance should be given to educators/parents.