The effect of mathematical games on 7th grade foreign students' learning operations with integers

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of mathematical games applied in teaching operations with integers in 7th grade on the mathematical success of foreign students. This study, which was prepared as a quantitative research type, was conducted in a quasi-experimental design with a pre-test post-test control group. The sample of the study consisted of 42 foreign students studying in the 7th grade at a state secondary school in Konyaaltı district of Antalya province. While selecting this sample, 21 of whom constituted the experimental group and 21 of whom constituted the control group, the purposeful sampling method, which is one of the non-random sampling methods, was preferred. While the foreign students constituting the experimental group were taught mathematics by playing 10 mathematical games designed by the researcher, the control group was taught mathematics with traditional teaching methods within the framework of the current program. The "Achievement Test for Operations with Integers" developed by the data collection tool Soydan (2019) was applied to both groups as a pre-test and post-test after obtaining the necessary permissions. In the analysis of the quantitative data obtained, statistical significance tests were performed in the SPSS 26 program and the significance level was taken as p≤.05. Since all the data had a normal distribution, the "Independent Sample T Test" and "Dependent (Related) Two Sample T Test" were used. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the difference between the data obtained from the achievement test of the experimental and control groups was significant. This finding proves that the use of mathematical games in teaching mathematics to foreign students is more effective than the traditional methods used within the framework of the current program. In addition, when the pre-test and post-test scores of the control group were compared, the difference was found to be significant. Traditional methods can also be effective in teaching mathematics to foreign students in the control group. However, this effect was found to be negligible when compared to the effect of mathematical games. At the end of the study, the use of games in different grade levels and subjects in the education of foreign students was suggested.