The effect of educational game exercise on physical fitness parameters in children

Our study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of educational play exercises on physical fitness parameters in children. The population of our study consisted of 50 boys aged 9-10 living in the city center of Yalova. It was divided into the control group (n=25) who did not exercise regularly and the planned educational game exercise group (n=25). And experimental research model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used. This model consists of two different groups, the control group and the experimental group, which were created by random method. Children in both groups were given tests measuring flexibility, balance, anaerobic power, agility, strength, speed and maximum oxygen capacity. Afterwards, the educational game group was given planned educational game exercises for 8 weeks, 3 days a week. Measurement tests were repeated for both groups at the end of 8 weeks. In the analysis of the data obtained, the statistical package program SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) for Windows 22.0 was used with a 95% confidence interval. Shapiro-Wilk Test was applied to test whether the data showed normal distribution and accordingly it was decided to use parametric tests. To test the statistical significance of the difference between the two means, the Paired T Test was used in the dependent (related) groups and the Independent Samples T test was used in the independent (unrelated) groups. As a result of the study, it was determined that there was no significant difference in the height, body weight, body mass index and speed test variables of the control and experimental group participants. A positive significant difference was found in favor of the experimental group in the test results of hand grip strength, flexibility, squad jump, flamingo balance, medicine ball throwing, agility, and shuttle run.