The Effect of Intelligence Games on Primary School 4th Grade Students' Mental Skill Levels

Abstract

This research was aimed to analyze the effects of intelligence games on the mental skill levels of fourth grade students. The research was carried out in a public school located in Manavgat district of Antalya province. The study group of the research consists of 40 volunteer students (20 in the experimental group, 20 in the control group) studying in two different branches of the 4th grades in the spring term of the 2021-2022 academic year. The research was designed in the form of a pre-test and post-test control group and the quantitative data of the research were collected through the 'Mental Skill Assessment Test' developed by Marangoz (2018). The experimental group was given a total of 16 hours of intelligence games training for eight weeks, two lessons per week (80 minutes). In the research, a valid and reliable ready-made test developed by Marangoz (2018) (Mental Skill Assessment Test) was used to evaluate students' mental skill levels (concentration of attention, strategic thinking, analysing, part-whole relationship, visual perception and use of clues). This test was applied to the experimental and control groups as a pre-test and post-test. The Normality Test was conducted to investigate the normal distribution of the data as a result of the research. In the research, 6 different intelligence games were used for eight weeks. In order to examine the relationship between the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental and control groups before the application, the dependent sample t-test was performed. In the research, it was observed that there was a significant increase in the mental skills of the experimental group students, who were played 6 different intelligence games for eight weeks. According to the results of the research, we can say that intelligence games improve the mental skills levels of students.