The effects of team-game tournaments technique on elementary school fourth grade students? acedemic achievement and retention toward mathematics course

The primary purpose of the study was to find out whether there are significant differences interms of mathematics achievement and the attitudes towards the Mathematics Course between the experimental group in which the team-game tournaments technique applied in the fourth grade Mathematics course in elementary education was administered and the control group in which ?2005-2006 Mathematics course instruction programs? was administered. The study was designed on experimental group with prtest and postest control group. The study was conducted in a state/public elementary school the district of Seyhan-Adana in the fall smester of 2006?2007 academic year. The application was carried out on 56 fourth-grade students attending two classes. The study was conducted in one experimental an one control group, and lasted for 13 weeks. The courses were done on the basis of schemes prepared for team-game tournaments technique in the experimental group. As for the control group, the courses were done through the course plans prepared for 2005-2006 Mathematics Course instruction Programs. While the courses were tought by the researcher in the experimental group and the control group. ?Mathematics Achievement Test? and ?Mathematics Attitude Scale? grown by Baykul (1990) were administered at the begining of the study as pre-test, at the end of the study post-test and two weeks later retention test to both experimental and control group. Furthermore, the ?Self-Identificaiton Scale? was utilized to all of the participants. At the end of the instruction, ?Semi-Structured Interview Form? was used for getting opinions about cooperative learning method and team-game tournaments technique instructional teaching. Covariance analysis was conducted on the data obtained from the achievement tests and attitude scale. The level of significance was p<.05. Content analysis technique was used in order to analyze the data obtained from ?Semi-Structured Interview Form?. The results obtained at the and of the study indicated that while there was not a significant difference in favour of the experimental group in terms of the post-test scores on the achievement test. And no significant different was observed between the retention test. Regarding the findings obtained from the ?Mathematihcs Course Attitude Scale?, there was not a significant difference among the groups in favour of the experimental group. And no signifacant difference between the ?Mathematics Course Attitude Scale? retention test. The results of the interview can be summerized as below: The students stated that their willing to attend the courses has increased through the team-game tournaments technique. They also stated that this technique increased their success, they go well with their friends and they learned to share, solidarity and studying cooperatively. Key Words: Cooperative Learning Method, Mathematics Education, Attitudes Toward the Mathematics Course, Team- Game Tournaments Technique