"the effect of game-based mathematics teaching on students' academic achievement, motivation, and attitudes: a meta-analysis study"

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of mathematics teaching supported with games on students' academic achievement, motivation towards the course and attitude. In addition, the study aims to determine whether the effect of mathematics teaching supported with games on students' academic achievement, motivation towards the course and attitude differs according to the status of the study, year of publication, type of publication, whether it is national or international, data collection tool, type of game, level of education and duration of application. For this purpose, meta-analysis method was used in the study. The study data were accessed by searching the defined keywords in the identified databases. The findings of domestic and international doctoral and master's theses, scientific articles, and scientific articles that examined "the effect of mathematics teaching supported by games on academic achievement, motivation, and attitude" between 2010 and 2023 were included in the study and examined. Based on the determined inclusion and exclusion criteria, the effect sizes of 234 studies on achievement, 44 on motivation, and 45 on attitude were separately calculated. Following the heterogeneity test, the overall effect size was estimated using the random effects model.. According to the random effects model, it was determined as .785 for achievement, .665 for motivation and .935 for attitude. These effect sizes are positive and large according to Lipsey and Wilson (2001). Excel and Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA, version 2) programs were used to find answers to the sub-problems regarding whether the studies included in the study differed in terms of effect sizes according to country, year of publication, type of publication, person performing the application, type of game, type of experimental design, level of education, and duration of application, and the significance level was accepted as 0.05. In line with these analyses, the effect of mathematics teaching supported with games on mathematics achievement did not differ in terms of country variables, but a significant difference was found in terms of other variables. In terms of motivation, it was found that there was a significant difference in terms of publication year, the person who carried out the implementation, experimental design, education level and implementation period, but there was no significant difference in terms of country, publication type and game type. In terms of attitude, it was found that there was a significant difference in terms of country, year of publication, type of publication, type of game and duration of implementation, while there was no significant difference in terms of the person who carried out the implementation, experimental design and level of education. As a result, it was concluded that mathematics teaching supported with games increased mathematics achievement, motivation and attitude towards the course and positively affected them. In general, the use of games in mathematics teaching is recommended especially at primary and secondary school education levels.