The effects of science education provided with digital and in-class games on the scientific process skills and cognitive development levels of preschool students

This study aimed to investigate the effects of science education provided with digital and in-class games on the scientific process skills and cognitive development levels of preschool students. The study used a quasi-experimental design. It was carried out at the Vali Mehmet Lütfullah Bilgin Primary School located in the province of Elazığ in Turkey in the academic year of 2018-2019. In the study conducted by 1 control and 2 experiment groups, the sample consisted of a total of 70 (24 in control, 23 in experiment I and 23 in experiment II) preschool students. The researcher designed a total of 16 educational games including 8 educational digital games and 8 educational in-class games. Science education was provided with the conventional methods in the control group, with educational digital games in the experiment I group and with educational in-class games in the experiment II group. The study covered a 10-week period, and 2 weeks of the process were allocated for implementation of pretests and posttests. The data of the study were collected by using the Cognitive Development Assessment Form consisting of cognitive development outcomes and indicators included in the Scientific Process Evaluation Test and the Preschool Curriculum of the Ministry of National Education (2013) that was developed by Sağırekmekçi (2016). SPSS 22 was used to analyze the data. The hypotheses were tested by using paired-samples t-test, paired-samples Wilcoxon Signed Rank test, independent-samples one-way ANOVA, independent-samples Kruskal Wallis H-test and Mann Whitney U test. According to the results of the paired-samples t-test, there were significant increases in the posttest scores of the experiment I group in the scientific process skills test and cognitive development assessment test (p< .05). These posttest scores were also observed to significantly increase in the experiment II group (p< .05), while there was no significant increase in these two scores in the control group (p> .05). Considering the results of the independent-samples one-way ANOVA test, it was observed that the two types of games were not significantly different in their degrees of improvement of scientific process skills and cognitive development (p>.05). On the other hand, there was a significant difference between the control group and the experiment groups in favor of the experiment groups (p<.05). When the intergroup differentiations in terms of the sub-dimensions of the scientific process skills determined by the Mann Whitney U test are considered, there was a significant difference in favor of the experiment II group only in the subdimension of classification (p<.05), while there was no significant difference between the experiment groups in terms of the other sub-dimensions (p>.05). The scientific process skill levels of the students that were in the experiment I and experiment II groups were significantly higher than those in the control group (p<.05). It was concluded that the sub-dimension scores of the scientific process skills test were significantly different between the control group and the experiment groups in favor of the experiment groups (p<.05). According to the results of this study, educational digital games and educational in-class games that were used in providing science education were effective in increasing the cognitive development levels and scientific process skills of preschool students. By providing science education alongside educational games, it may be possible to contribute to willing involvement of preschool students in science activities and improvement of their scientific process skills and cognitive development levels