The Effect of a Designed Educational Toy on Developing the Concept of Direction: A Study on Preschool Children

Allowing for sense-making of a product or situation, perception is an important factor in the act of understanding. Given that senses take a significant part in the product perception of users, a multi-dimensional axis of the interaction of the user with the respective product that appeals to multiple senses will be determinative. The use of the sound factor as a design element in this study supported the child-toy interaction with visual and auditory elements, aiming to enforce the didactic effect on the child. In order to examine the effect of the designed educational toy on the concept development of preschool children, an experimental design model with pretest and posttest control groups was used. The study sample included 148 preschool children, consisting of 79 boys and 69 girls at ages between 48-60 months; who were assigned to a total of 5 experimental and 5 control groups. Based on the statistical analysis results, it was concluded that the educational toy contributed to the improvements in the development of the direction-location-position concept in preschool children.