The effects of cooperative games in 9th grade physical education lessons on the social skills levels of the students and on the attitudes towards pe lessons

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The aim of this research is to investigate the effects of cooperative games in 9th grade Physical Education lessons on the social skills levels of the students and on the attitudes towards PE lessons.
The research which employed an experiment-control group design with pre-test/post-test model was undertaken by using 2 of the 9th grade classes that were similar to each other in a primary school situated in a town in the central Bolu Province in 2007-2008 educational year. The classes were assigned as control and experiment groups randomly. The experiment group consisted of 28 students, 22 of which were female (78.6%) and 6 were male students (21.4%). The control group consisted of 26 students, 23 of which were female (88.5%) and 3 were males (11.5%).
As data collection tools, Social Skills Inventory which was created by Riggio (1986) and later translated and adapted to turkish by Yüksel (1998) and Physical Education and Sports Attitudes Scale (BESTÖ) which was developed by Demirhan and Altay were used for quantitative data. In order to gather qualitative data, interviews were done with students from the experimental group and both experimental and control groups were observed during class time.
In analyzing the quantitative data, SPSS 15.0 statistical package was used for data gathered through Social Skills Inventory and Physical Education and Sports Attitudes Scale. In order to form control and experiment groups, independent samples t-test, one-way Anova and Tukey HSD were applied. In order to examine the similarities between control and experiment groups on total points, on Attitude and on the 6 sub-dimensions of Social Skills Inventory, dependent and independent samples t-tests were used.
Dependent samples t-test was used in order to see whether there was a statistically significant difference between pre and post-test social skills and attitude points for control and experiment groups.
Also independent samples t-tests were applied to control and experimental groups to determine whether there was a statistically meaningful difference between pre and post-test social skills sub-dimensions, total points and the attitude points.
For qualitative data, student expressions and observer notes were coded and these codes were used to create sub-themes which in turn formed the basic themes. According to the results of the study, we can conclude that:
Quantitative findigs:
1. When the results of the pre-test and post test of sub-dimensions in social skills and total social skills points were compared for the experiment group which used cooperative games in PE lessons, it was seen that there was a statistically significant difference between perceptive expressions, social sensitivity, social control sub-dimensions and total points. But there was no meaningful statistical difference in perceptive sensitivity, perceptive control and social expressions.
2. When the results of the pre-test and post test of sub-dimensions in social skills and total social skills points were compared for the control group which engaged in traditional PE lessons, it was seen that there was no statistically significant difference between perceptive expressions, social sensitivity, social expressions and social control sub-dimensions and total points. Statistically significant differences were found in perceptive control dimension that was regressing and social sensitivity sub-dimension that was improving.
3. The pre-test and post-test points for attitude for the experiment group that engaged in cooperative games during PE lessons did not pinpoint a meaningful statistical difference.
4. The pre-test and post-test points for attitude for the control group that engaged in traditional methods during PE lessons did not pinpoint a meaningful statistical difference.
5. When the experiment group that experienced cooperative games during PE lessons and the control group that used the current traditional methods were compared, there was no meaningful statistical difference between the groups in terms of perceptive expressions, perceptive sensitivity, perceptive control, social expressions, social sensitivity and social control sub-dimensions of social skills and the total social skills points.
6. There was no significant statistical difference for the experiment group students after PE lessons in which they experienced cooperative games in terms of attitude when they were compared with control group students.
Qualitative findigs:

1. When the main themes and their sub-themes from student’s expressions investigate, it is possible to say that; experimental group’s students improved positive attitudes toward physical education lesson at the end of the lesson process and their behaviour devoloped into positive side in the process and than their opinions was positive toward physical education and cooperative games.
2. When compared experimental groups’ themes with control groups’ themes, experimental group showed closer behaviour about social skills and improved more positive attitudes than contol group.