The effect of educational games on Turkish course attitudes and motivations of primary school students

The aim of the study is to evaluate the expenditures of educational purposes on the attitudes and motivations of primary school students towards the Turkish lesson. This study was conducted in a pretest posttest unequalized control and experimental group quasi-treatment design. The Turkish lesson, which was formed with educational games for 8 weeks, was applied to the experimental group. The control group, on the other hand, continued to teach Turkish in the curriculum of the program. At the end of the process, post-tests were applied to both groups and to interpret the differences. In the 2021-2022 academic year, 54 students who are in the 4th grade of a primary school affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Kepez district of Antalya province constituted the research study. These students consist of an experimental group of 26 people and a control group of 28 people. The research data were collected with the Turkish lesson attitude measurement (Kapar Kuvanç, 2008) and Turkish lesson motivation calculation (Erdem ve Gözüküçük, 2013) in order to determine the students' attitudes and motivations towards the Turkish lesson. Research data were analyzed with dependent t test, independent t test, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Mann Whitney U test and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). As a result of the research; • It was determined that there was no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental and control group students regarding their Turkish lesson attitudes. • It was determined that there was no significant difference between the pre- and post-test scores of the sub-dimensions of the attitude scale towards the Turkish lesson of the students in the experimental and control groups. In addition, the data of the experimental and control group attitude scale sub-dimensions were analyzed within themselves. When the "negative emotions" sub-dimension, which is the first sub-dimension of the attitude scale, was examined, it was observed that there was a decrease in the first sub-dimension of the experimental group's post-test, while an increase was observed in the first sub-dimension of the control group's post-test. When the "interest and desire" sub-dimension, which is the second sub-dimension of the Turkish lesson attitude scale, was examined, it was determined that there was an increase in the second sub-dimension of the post-test of the experimental group, while there was a decrease in the second sub-dimension of the post-test of the control group. When the "use in life" sub-dimension, which is the third sub-dimension of the Turkish lesson attitude scale, was examined, it was determined that there was an increase in the third sub-dimension of the post-test of the experimental group, as well as an increase in the third sub-dimension of the post-test of the control group. • It has been determined that there is a significant difference in favor of the posttest between the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental group students regarding the motivation of the Turkish lesson. It was determined that there was no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the control group students regarding the motivation of the Turkish lesson.