An investigation of mathematics contents of children periodicals

The aim of this study is to analyze the mathematical contents of children periodicals in terms of the physical characteristics of the magazines, the compatibility with the curriculum and the characteristics of the problems. Being qualitative in nature, document analysis is used to analyze the problems in the children periodicals. In the scope of the research, 202 issues of Bilim Çocuk, 74 issues of TSE Öncü Çocuk were inspected and the mathematical content pages were compiled. The data to be encoded are divided into three main groups. At the end of this process, 86 mathematical articles, 314 mathematical games and 674 problems, 1074 contents, in total, were determined. According to the findings of the research, the mathematical content in the periodicals corresponds to 4% of the total pages. It was determined that more than half of the mathematical content in the magazines (63%) were in problem type, 29% were planned as play activities and only 8% mathematical articles. It is noted that the majority of the images used in the magazines (63%) are suitable for the content. When reviewing the contents of the periodicals, problem-solving skills seem to have come to the forefront of the skills involved. In addition, more than half of the mathematical content is devoted to numbers learning arae. Of the mathematical concepts mentioned in the magazines, only 45 (such as palindromic numbers, sierpinski triangle, trepozoite, equilibrium theory, coding) are out of the curriculum of the year they are affiliated. It has been noticed that in children 's magazines, the problems of daily life are given less than the problems not related to daily life. The distribution of routine and non-routine problems in children 's periodicals is closer to each other, and routine problems are given more in the periodicals. When the cases of open or closed ended problems were examined, it was determined that most of the problems in the magazines were closed ended questions (89%). It is seen that almost all of the problems (98.3%) in both BÇ and TSEÖÇ journals have adequate knowledge require for solving the problems. In the majority of the problems (67%) were in the form of completely mathematical context whilst an explanatory context has been preferred in about one-third of the problems. When the answer that should be given to the problems is examined, it is determined that more than half of the problems (52%) are problems requiring numerical answer. In the vast majority (84%) of the problems in the periodicals, solution can be achieved with multi-step operations, single-step solutions are required by 16% of the problems. In addition, problem solving abilities are found to be most needed requirement dimension.