The experimental model was used in this study examining the effectiveness of a concept education programme on visual-spatial perception mechanisms.

The application process consisted of three stages:

The inclusion criteria used to form the groups were the participants had a normal development process, equal family structure, equal duration of preschool education, no experience of attending a concept education programme and or visual perception programme, similar maternal and paternal educational status, and spoke Turkish as their mother language. Children’s history regarding any neurological or psychiatric condition was determined with special education experts.

For data collection, this study used the ‘Personal Information Form’, developed by the researchers, Frostig’s Lefever and Whittlesey (1961), ‘Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception’ and Boehm’s (2001) ‘Boehm Test of Basic Preschool Concepts-3’.

Concept Maps were prepared in accordance to the purpose of the study. The aim was that concept maps include the process by which the network, rules, typography, relevant-irrelevant characteristics, elements and the taxonomy are taught and evaluated through the drawing and interpretation of a perceptual framework.

When generating the formal dimension of the concept maps, the following were considered:

Concept maps (see Figure 1) were ordered from the simple to the complicated. Eight concept maps related to items of food, clothes, animals, getting to know their bodies, professions, vehicles and sky were generated and separated into hierarchies in accordance to certain characteristics suitable to children’s perceptions.

When preparing the content details of the concept maps, the following were considered:

The concept maps to be examined as part of the educational programmes related to concepts were separated into sub-categories, and starting from the upper hierarchy, the original picture of the concept was provided in a box in each sub-category, with the name of the concept being provided above.

After generating the concept maps, the experimental group was trained 3 days a week for 8 weeks on the hierarchy and categories. After learning the names of all entities, the aim was to consolidate the concepts using the concepts related to each entity.

During each educational session, children were shown the effectiveness of the concept maps by engaging in activities that include the concepts of MEB’s preschool curricula. The activities were performed as questions and answers, which served to support their imagination, interest and curiosity. Concept maps were presented after the activities, with the concepts in the map being provided.

The educational programme applied to the experimental group was prepared and implemented as follows.

Relevant literature was reviewed and necessary details were revised prior to obtaining data. Evaluation tools were used and educational practices were performed after the researcher obtained the necessary permission. The kindergartens operating under the Ministry of National Education in Duzce were determined for the experimental study, and the following methods were used for data collection (see Figure 2):

Children’s visual-spatial perceptions and conceptual skills were evaluated using FDTVP and Boehm-3 tests, respectively. The following methods were used for the analysis of the data. The scores each child obtained on the Boehm-3 and FDTVP tests and their sub-dimensions were separately calculated. No difference was found between the groups in terms of the mean scores obtained by the children in the pre- and post-application stage.

This section presents the data analysis findings related to the variables related to the children of the study group before and after undergoing the concept education.

The values in Table 1 indicate that a significant difference was present between the visual-spatial perception skills post-test results of the experimental and control groups (t(92) = −6.79; p < 0.05). Post-test scores for the visual-spatial perception of the experimental group (X = 97.91), on which the CEPBCM programme was implemented, were found to be significantly higher than those of the control group (X = 76.21) (p < 0.05).

The data in Table 1 indicate that on the Boehm test, there was a significant difference between the conceptual skills post-test results achieved by the children in the two groups (t(46) = −3.42; p < 0.05). Results show that the conceptual skills post-test scores of the experimental group (X = 158.40), which was educated using the concept map, were higher than those of the control group (X = 134.51).

Results from Table 2 reveal that there was a significant difference between the pre- and post-test scores obtained on the ‘Perception of the place and location’, ‘Visual-motor coordination’, ‘Figure-ground perception’, ‘Figure stability’ and ‘Perception of the spatial relationships’ sub-dimensions (T[30] = −8.54, −9.34, −7.64, −7.23, −4.51, p < 0.05). The children’s pre- and post-education ‘Visual-motor’ subtest scores were X = 76.45 and X = 96.31, respectively. Their pre-test score on the ‘Figure-ground perception’ subtest was X = 75.59 before the education, rising to X = 97.73 after the education. The ‘Figure stability’ subtest score rose from X = 77.56 to X = 99.89; the ‘Perception of the place and location’ subtest score rose from X = 73.82 to X = 98.43 and the ‘Spatial relationships’ subtest score rose from X = 75.01 to X = 96.40.

Table 3 indicates that there was a significant difference between the Boehm-3 scores obtained by the experimental group on ‘Visual-motor coordination’, ‘Figure-ground perception’, ‘Figure stability’, ‘Perception of the place and location’ and ‘Perception of the spatial relationships’ dimensions. A positive, significant relationship was present between all FDTVP sub-dimensions and the children’s conceptual skills (p < 0.05).

The findings in Table 4 indicate that there was a strong, significant correlation in children’s scores obtained on the FDTVP and Boehm-3 tests (r = 0.561. p = 0.000). Otherwise stated, the children’s visual-spatial perception skills improved as their conceptual skills scores increased.

Table 5 indicates that the scores the experimental group obtained on the Boehm-3 and FDTVP test monitoring (permanence) did not differ from the scores obtained on the post-tests, and that the mean scores were similar to one another (p > 0.05). A detailed examination of the table shows that there were no significant differences between the post-test score on the visual perception and conceptual skills in the permanence test performed 2 weeks after the post-test, and that the permanence (monitoring) test scores were slightly higher than the post-test scores. This indicates that the experimental groups’ scores on the Boehm-3 and FDTVP tests increased in 2 weeks, and that the effects of the education became clearer and more permanent over time.

This study has shown that the Concept Education Program Based on Configured Concept Map, which was generated from concept functions regarded as important mental activities and functioned to revise the details, positively affected children’s visual-spatial perception mechanisms. Experimental and control groups were tested to see whether or not there was a difference in terms of the perceptual skills after the former received the Concept Education Program Based on Configured Concept Map. The children’s pre- and post-education scores on the FDTVP and Boehm-3 tests, which are displayed in Table 1, indicated no significant difference between experimental and control groups.

As it seems post-test data in Table 1, it is fair to assume that the CEPBCM programme provided to the children is effective in terms of improving their visual-spatial perceptual skills, and that this education would yield more successful results in developing visual-perceptual skills compared to the traditional approach. Moreover, the concept maps significantly supported the learning process involving the characterisation of the entities and their separation into categories and thereby ensured their effectiveness. Thus, this study suggests that visual stimulants can be effective in developing visual-spatial perception mechanisms. Li and Atkins (2004) stated in their studies that there was a statistically significant relationship between the visual perceptions, sub-dimensions and conceptual skills.

It is believed that the increase that was not statistically significant the control group’s post-test scores on the FDTVP test compared to the pre-test scores was related to the fact that the children are in a rapid growth model with the preschool educational programme implemented in the schools these children attend.

As in Table 1, which was reported earlier, prior to the implementation of the educational programme, the conceptual skills of the experimental and control groups were equal to each other; however, the educational sessions provided as part of the CEPBCM programme affected positively children’s conceptual skills. In support of the hypotheses of this study, this education yielded more successful results compared to the traditional approach.

The implementation of the present educational programme, using the concept map, led children to perform significantly better on visual-spatial perception skills, as compared to the period before the implementation, and this helped them to be more successful on the test. This outcome indicates that concept maps are also effective for visual-spatial skills because not only are they easy, inexpensive, with direct instruction educational interventions but they are also active methods, which are more effective than other methods in displaying the conceptual relationships and connections and in forming cause and effect relationships.

The findings suggest that, as Table 2 shows, there was a significant difference between the pre- and post-test scores the experimental group obtained on the ‘Perception of the place and location’, ‘Visual-motor coordination’, ‘Figure-ground perception’, ‘Figure stability’ and ‘Perception of the spatial relationships’ sub-dimensions. The greatest difference among the scores obtained on the sub-dimensions of the FDTVP test was seen in the ‘Perception of the place and location’ sub-dimension, where the children had the highest score, all of the skills in the sub-dimension of the FDTVP test can be independently supported with the CEPBCM programme, and thus, the concept maps have the capacity of improving each subskill. Data in Table 3 indicate that there was a positive, significant relationship between all the sub-dimensions of the FDTVP and the experimental group’s conceptual skills.

‘Visual-motor coordination’ requires cooperation between visual perception skills and physical development. Thus, the education provided with the concept maps is thought to significantly contribute to the development of visual-motor skills in various ways because it contains visual images that support the direction, shape or form, location or position concepts and visual perception. Marr, Windsor and Cemark (2011) implemented a concept skills education programme for children in their study and reported that children made progress in copying figures and letters, properly using the details that indicate the location of objects, and writing short and simple words. Similarly, Koc (2002) generated an educational programme model for developing visual perception skills and found that the experimental group in the study displayed a significant increase in visual-motor coordination, spatial relationships, figure stability, figure-ground perception and perception of the place and location dimensions, while the control group displayed no development.

Table 4 shows that there was a linear relationship between the correlation coefficients of both evaluation tools implemented for the experimental group. Moreover, a weak correlation, which was not statistically significant, was present between the subtests.

The findings reported by Klausmeier (1992), Vansledright and Frankes (2000) and Berti and Andriolo (2001) all of whom conducted similar studies on concept education revealed that the concept education strategy implemented for the experimental group generated positive, significant differences for learning concepts compared to the traditional education model.

Studies conducted by Manocha and Narang (2004) and Erden and Akman (2005), on concept development during early childhood, noted the importance of providing formal and configured concept education to children, suggesting that this education positively supported children in developing concepts.

Kabaca and Ozdemir (2002) reported in their studies that the concept map method significantly affected the memorisation skill and helped children to visualise information and activate the memory, and moreover, that it was an effective tool for learning insofar as it increased the rate of the interaction between the children and the rate of information exchange.

Table 5 indicates that there was a significant difference between the pre- and post-test scores of the experimental group, whereas there was no significant difference between the post-test and monitoring test, although there was a slight increase in favour of the monitoring test. The control group’s pre- and post-test and permanence (monitoring) scores on the FDTVP and Boehm-3 tests were found to be similar, with no significant difference found between the scores; although an increase was present on the permanence test compared to the post-test. These results suggest that the CEPBCM properly configured the children’s concept and visual perception skills, based on their scores on concept skills, and this effect continued to be active after the education was completed. In the studies by Ratzon et al. (2009), which evaluated children’s school-related skills and visual-motor coordination skills, it was reported that the children’s success in the test for permanence (monitoring) in visual-motor coordination skills was consistent as a result of the education related to visual perception.