The effect of using teaching with play method on attitude and success in gaining the problem solving skills in primary mathematics course

In this research the effect of using teaching with play method in primary mathematics course, on the success of the problem solving, mathematics lesson and attitudes towards solving mathematical problem were investigated. The study was conducted with quasi-experimental model with pre test-post test control group. The sample of the study consisted of 59 4th grade students, who were studying in the Turhal district of Tokat in 2018-2019 academic year, 30 in the experimental group and 29 in the control group. Within the scope of the research, the realization of the achievements related to the problem solving in the "Natural Numbers" unit were provided by teaching with play method in the experimental group by the researchers and for the control group, it was provided by the classroom teachers with activities prepared according to the 4th grade mathematics curriculum (MEB, 2018).The study lasted 8 weeks, 3 hours per week. The problem-solving success test, mathematics lesson attitude scale (Baykul, 1990) and mathematics problem solving attitude scale (Çanakçı, 2008) were used as data collection tools. Data collection tools were applied to the experimental and control groups as pre-test and post-test. SPSS 18.0 program was used to analyze the data. According to the results, the application of the activities prepared according to the teaching method in the experimental group and the mathematics curriculum in the control group (MEB, 2018) significantly increased the problem solving success of the students. When the achievement difference scores of the groups were compared, it was found that the increase in the achievement of the students in the experimental group was significantly higher than the increase in the achievement of the students in the control group. When the findings related to mathematics lesson and mathematics problem solving attitude scales were examined, it was found that the activities prepared according to the method teaching with play and mathematics lesson curriculum (MEB, 2018) had no significant effect on the attitudes of the students in the experimental and control groups.