The effect of mathematics teaching supported by traditional children's games on sixth grade students' attitudes towards mathematics and mathematics anxiety

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of mathematics teaching supported by traditional children's games on sixth grade students' attitudes towards mathematics and mathematics anxiety. In the study, a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group, one of the quantitative research designs, was used. In line with this purpose, the study was conducted in the fall semester of the 2024-2025 academic year with a total of 32 students studying in two different public schools in İhsaniye district of Afyonkarahisar province. There were 16 students each in the experimental and control groups. The fractions unit was taught to sixth grade students with the support of traditional children's games and the changes in students' attitudes towards mathematics and mathematics anxiety were investigated. In the study, quantitative data were collected with the Attitude towards Mathematics Scale and Mathematics Anxiety Scale. Qualitative data were obtained from the math diaries kept by the students in the experimental group and semi-structured interviews with the students. While the students in the experimental group were taught the relevant unit topics with the support of traditional children's games, the students in the control group were taught according to the current program. As a result of the study, the mathematics course attitude scale scores of the experimental group students increased more than the scores of the control group students, but this increase was not found to be statistically significant. Similarly, although students' math anxiety scores decreased more, this decrease was not statistically significant. On the other hand, when the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental group students were compared, it was found that while the math anxiety scores did not show a statistically significant difference, the attitude scores towards mathematics differed statistically significantly in favor of the posttest. In addition, students stated that mathematics teaching supported by traditional children's games provided permanent learning, they started to understand mathematics, increased participation in the lesson, provided learning by having fun, provided a better understanding of the subject, and reduced their fear of going to the blackboard and mathematics. It may be recommended to include traditional children's games when teaching other subjects in mathematics.