Investigating the effect of algorithmic-based educational computer games on perception of secondary school students about problem solving skills

The aim of this study is to review the effects of algorith based educational computer games to the apprehension of problem solving skills of students within the context of curriculum that is developed intended for the "Problem Solving and Programming" units of middle school Information Technologies and Software lesson for 5 and 6 grade students. The apprehension of problem solving skills is accepted in the literature as a future century skill that is thought to affect academical and life-sustaining success through the life of the individuals. How the power of these algorithms affect the skills of the people individually in the field of tehnological problem solving remains to be a crucial research topic. "Experimental model on a control group with pretest-posttest design" has been used in the research. The control group of the study is composed of 131 students that receive education in 5 and 6 grades in a middle school that is located in The experiment and control groups performed their lessons simultaneously and correspondingly to the outcomes of Information Technologies and Software (BTY) Lesson Curriculum that was published by Ministry of National Education (MEB) in 2018. The curriculum that was prepared using the algorithm based educational computer games was applied in experiment groups. Educational computer games that are present in the digital world which are intended for the outcomes existing within the unit and which includes this scope have been used for the administration in this group. Control groups practised the curriculum that is prepared by MEB. Apprehension Scale Towards the Problem Solving Skills for Middle School Students that was developed by Ekici and Balım (2013) has been used as the data collection tool in this study. As a result of the statistical studies carried out, it was determined that the students in the experimental and control groups had a good level of perception of problem solving skills and sub-factor averages depending on the scale before and after the application. After the application, it was found that there was no significant difference between the groups and the students' perception of problem solving skills. It has been determined that there is a significant difference in favor of the experimental group in the mean scores of the willingness stability perception factor both before and after the application. Keywords: Algorithm, problem solving skills perception, educational game.