The Effects of Mind Games and Games Containing Physical Activity on Attention and Visual Perception Levels of Primary School Students

Abstract

The aim of the research is to investigate the effects of mind games and games containing physical activity on the attention and visual perception levels of the primary school students. In this research, experimental design with pretest-posttest control group was used. The population of the study consists of seven-year-old children, and the sample consists of 160 volunteer students, who are chosen through purposeful sampling method and involved in game and physical activity group, mind games group, both physical activity and mind games group, and control group, studying at the Primary School in Kırşehir province in the 2017–2018 academic year. The data were collected by “Bourdon Attention Test (Letter Form)” and “Frostig Developmental Visual Perception Test”. A 14-week program was applied to the students in the experimental group and the students were given two hours of practice per day for three days a week. In the analysis of the data, arithmetic mean and standard deviation values of the pre-tests were calculated according to the group variables. The dependent sample t test was used to examine the differences of measurements within the group, one-way analysis of variance was used to make comparisons between the groups and the Tukey HSD analysis was used as a post-hoc analysis to determine the difference between the groups. According to the findings of the study, the attention and visual perception pre and post-test scores obtained from the experimental groups indicate that there is a significant difference in favor of the post-test scores. As a result, all experimental groups showed a significantly higher difference in visual perception and attention when compared to the control group. This result shows that applying mind games, games containing physical activity, both mind games and games containing physical activity together are effective in developing visual perception and attention.