This master's thesis examines the effect of teaching with educational games in fundamental basketball training on the cognitive and psychomotor development levels of children in the 10-12 age group. The importance of the study highlights the role of play in supporting children's physical and mental development. Play is considered a natural learning environment that allows the individual to express themselves and develop their abilities. It is stated that educational sports games develop students' creativity, decision-making skills, and imagination, and provide them with the ability to think quickly. In this context, the effects of play-based approaches in basketball training on cognitive and psychomotor development are investigated.

The study group of the research consists of a total of 32 male participants in the 10-12 age group from 2 different sports clubs in Ankara. The participants were selected with attention to the fact that they had not received fundamental basketball training before. The study is conducted on two groups: an experimental and a control group. An educational game-based training program of 60 minutes, 3 days a week for 12 weeks, was applied to the experimental group. The control group received a classical training program for the same duration and frequency. A cognitive development test (developed by the researcher with proven reliability) and the Johnson Basketball Skill Test are used as data collection tools. SPSS 16.0 software package was used for data analysis, and Paired Samples T-test and Independent Samples T-test are applied.

The obtained findings determined that the training program containing educational games positively affected the cognitive and psychomotor development levels of children in the 10-12 age group in fundamental basketball training. Although there was improvement in both groups, it is seen that the scores of the experimental group, to which the educational game program was applied, in the cognitive development test were higher than the control group. Similarly, in the psychomotor development test results, the experimental group obtained higher scores in skills such as dribbling, passing, and shooting compared to the control group. The study shows that education enriched with games provides higher quality outputs from the learned knowledge and exhibited skills. Furthermore, it was observed that the subjects participating in the game group not only performed better but also had more fun during the training sessions.

In line with these results, some important recommendations are presented by the researcher. It is stated that in addition to cognitive and psychomotor development, the effect of teaching with educational games on affective development should also be investigated. Furthermore, it is recommended that teaching with games be used in the fundamental training of other sports branches, and that games be added to physical education lesson curriculums to measure learning speeds and their permanence. Applying similar studies to female students and comparing them with the results of male students is another important recommendation.

In this study, how effective the teaching method with educational games is in basketball training has been revealed with scientific data. We present our thanks to Mehmet Ulaş for this valuable study. The full thesis can be accessed via www.tez.yok.gov.tr using the code 349026.