The effect of computer-assisted educational games on teaching noun and noun-related topics

The present study was conducted with the aim of determining the impact of computer-assisted instruction and correspondingly computer-assisted educational games on academic achievements of students on grammar and attitudes of students. In this study, a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest nonequivalent group based on a quantitative study was applied. The study group consisted of two classes of 6th grade students studying at a secondary school affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Kocaeli, Turkey. A total of 70 students from the two classes participated in the study. The experimental group included 20 females (57, 14), and 15 males while the control group consisted of 19 males (54, 26), and 16 females. In the study, computer-aided educational games were developed in order to use for the experimental group. While the computer-aided educational games were being used for the experimental group in the 12-week period, the lessons in the control group were maintained with the activities in the curriculum. The classes involved in the study were taught from the point of constructivism. All conditions, except the method and the techniques used in the experimental and the control group, were kept equal for the both groups. The scale developed by Ünal and Köse (2014) with its pre-determined validity and reliability as an attitude scale towards the Turkish course and the scale developed by Pehlivan, Aydın and Uyumaz (2018) as an attitude scale towards grammar. As an achievement test, a Grammar Achievement Test formed by Durukan (2011) was used. For data analysis, the Mann Whitney U and the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test were applied and the Spearman Brown correlation coefficient was calculated. The academic achievements on grammar between the experimental group in which computer-assisted educational games were applied and the control group in which the existing curriculum was followed caused a significant difference in terms of the attitudes towards the Turkish course and the attitudes towards grammar on the behalf of the experimental group. The study showed that this kind of applications in teaching grammar made a significant difference on achievement and attitude. According to the results of the pretest and the posttest, there was no a significant difference on the achievement on grammar, on the attitudes towards the Turkish course and grammar in terms of gender. The study found out that according to the results of the pretest and the posttest obtained from the experimental group in which computer-assisted educational games were applied and from the control group in which the existing curriculum was followed, there was a statistically moderate positive significant relationship between the attitudes towards grammar and the Turkish course. The attitudes towards grammar determine the attitudes towards the Turkish course. However, it was concluded that there was no a statistically significant relationship between the results of the pre- and the post-grammar achievement test of all of the students participating in the study and the attitudes towards the Turkish course and grammar. Keywords: teaching grammar, educational computer games, computer-assisted instruction