The effect of educational digital games on financial literacy in the 4th grade social studies course

Beginning to live in a digitalized world with the advancement of technology offers important opportunities to students in the field of education as well as in every field. The aim of this study, which is related to the use of digitalization in teaching, is to examine the effectiveness of educational digital games in gaining financial literacy skills in Social Studies course. The research was carried out in an embedded experimental design in which quantitative and qualitative methods from mixed research methods were used together. The study group of the research consists of 54 students, 27 of whom are in the experimental group and 27 in the control group, who are studying in the 4th grade of a public school in Kahta District of Adıyaman and determined according to the criterion sampling method. As a result of the 6-week application, quantitative data were collected through the Financial Literacy Scale for Primary Schools and the Social Studies Lesson "Production, Distribution and Consumption" Learning Area Academic Achievement Test, and qualitative data were collected through student diaries, field notes, researcher diary and semi-structured interview form. Related and unrelated samples t-tests and ANOVA tests were used in the analysis of the quantitative data collected through the Financial Literacy Scale for Primary Schools and the Social Studies Lesson "Production, Distribution and Consumption" Learning Area Academic Achievement Test. The effect size was calculated for the results obtained from the related samples t-test. Content analysis was used in the analysis of qualitative data. Content analysis was used in the analysis of qualitative data obtained through interviews, observations, video recordings and researcher diary. As a result of the findings, it was concluded that academic achievement and financial literacy attitudes and academic achievements increased significantly in favor of the experimental group in the lessons taught using educational digital games. In addition, it was observed that the students had a lot of fun and were happy in the lessons taught with educational digital games, and they liked the lessons more. In the studies to be done, an application can be made by preparing an environment where all students can play the games at the same time. Keywords: Social studies, Educational digital games, Digital games, Attitude towards course, Financial literacy