Improving the number sense levels of primary school students with Scratch software supported activities and game-based activities

The purpose of this research is to determine the number sense levels of 2nd grade primary school students and develop them with Scratch software-supported and game-based activities. In the research, the Number Sense Test (SHT), which was developed by taking into account the number sense components and the Numbers and Operations learning area in the curriculum, was applied to the students as a pre-test and post-test, and then interviews were conducted based on the students' solutions to the questions in the test. For this reason, the research was designed with an exploratory sequential design, one of the mixed research methods. In determining the participants of the study convenience sampling and criterion sampling, which are among the purposeful sampling methods, were used together. In this context, the participants of the study consist of 14 students studying in the 2nd grade of a primary school affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Yozgat province in the spring semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. Within the scope of the research, activities were carried out for the students within the framework of the lesson plans prepared for 7 weeks, and the application process of the scales was completed 1 week before the activities and 1 week after the activities. Wilcoxon signed-rank test and descriptive analysis were used to analyze the data obtained. As a result of the research, when the pre-test and post-test scores of the students from SHT were compared, it was seen that there was a statistically significant difference in favor of the post-test. In addition, it can be said that rule-based solutions are more often replaced by number sense-based solutions in the answers given by the students after the process.