The effect of toys as educative material on pre-service education students' understanding of energy

Abstract

This study focuses on the effects of the exposure of pre-service education students (n=87) to a variety of toys used as educative curriculum material in an attempt to develop their understanding of energy. Changes in their knowledge, their confidence in terms of this knowledge, and the reasons they attributed for any changes in both their knowledge and confidence were investigated. A single group pre-post design was utilised which included both the use of an online pre-post intervention questionnaire and a ‘pen-and-paper’ questionnaire. The data generated suggest that the use of toys increased the students' knowledge and confidence statistically significantly (p>.000 in both cases) with medium (d=0.67) and high (d=0.78) practical significance (effect sizes), respectively. The subject content knowledge and confidence data correlated positively (r=0.69) and, although some caveats and reservations were expressed, the majority of the participating students ascribed their improved knowledge and confidence to the use of toys during the intervention.