The Effect of Play-Based Math Activities on Different Areas of Development in Children 48 to 60 Months of Age

Meral Taner Derman,Arzu Ergişi Birgül,Elvan Şahin Zeteroğlu

doi:10.1177/2158244020919531

Meral Taner Derman, Arzu Ergişi Birgül + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020919531

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Journal: SAGE Open	Publication Date: Apr 1, 2020
Citations: 6	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Uludağ University

Abstract

There are previous studies in the literature conducted on the effect of play-based math activities on the mathematical skills, language, and cognitive development of preschool children. However, the number of studies conducted to determine the effect of play-based math activities on different areas of development in preschool children was too few. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of play-based math activities on different developmental areas (personal-social, fine motor, language, and gross motor development) of children 48 to 60 months of age. The pretest/posttest quasi-experimental research design with control and experimental groups was employed in this study. The research group of this study is composed of 45 children 22 of whom (10 girls and 12 boys) were in the experimental group and 23 (10 girls and 13 boys) in the control group. Denver II Developmental Screening Test was used as the data collection tool. As a result, it was determined that there was a significant difference between the subscales and pretest-posttest total scores concerning personal-social, fine motor, and language areas in the experimental group, while there was no statistically significant difference in the gross motor subscale. In addition, it was observed that there was statistically no significant difference between pretest–posttest scores concerning personal-social, fine motor, language, gross motor subscales and total scores of the control group. The result revealed that play-based math activities have a positive effect on personal-social, fine motor, language, and gross motor developments of children. Further studies can be planned to investigate the effects of play-based mathematics education integrated with different activities where children can have fun and be physically active on children’s developmental areas.

Highlights

Play is the leading figure among the activities that the children enjoyably perform and the basis of physical, social, mental, and emotional development of the child and has the function of a bridge among their cognitive, affective, and kinetic developments
The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of play-based math activities on different developmental areas of children 48 to 60 months of age
The result revealed that play-based math activities have a positive effect on personal-social, fine motor, language, and gross motor developments of children 48 to 60 months of age

Summary

Introduction

Play is the leading figure among the activities that the children enjoyably perform and the basis of physical, social, mental, and emotional development of the child and has the function of a bridge among their cognitive, affective, and kinetic developments. According to Uğurel and Moralı (2008), play is an indispensable part of life for children. According to Xu (2010), play is not a structure that waste time, but rather contributes to the development of the individual’s mental, affective, social, and psychomotor skills. Children can acquire affective features such as self-confidence (Susüzer, 2006) and they can better express themselves, realize their talents, and develop socialcognitive skills (Gmitrova et al, 2009). It is accepted that a child, whose needs for play is met, is healthy in terms of physical and mental aspects (Hirose et al, 2011). It is known that the characters of children who can cooperate with their friends and comply with the rules of the games develop positively during the play (Saracho, 2001)

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