Abstract

• The major purpose of this research was to study the effects of concept-based teaching on students’ achievement in science at the middle school level. Concept-based teaching is defined as a student-centered learning environment that fosters the development of reasoning skills using concepts. The experimental designed adopted in this study was a true experimental design, namely, posttest only control group design. For this study, an experimental study was used to investigate the effects of concept-based teaching. In this experimental study, the subjects were Grade seven students selected from No (1) BEHS Insein and No (2) BEHS Mayangone. For this study, (120) Grade Seven students were selected from both schools by random sampling method. These students were divided into two groups: control and experimental. The experimental group was treated with concept-based teaching and the control group was taught as formal instruction. After that, a posttest was administered to two groups. Independent samples t-test was used to test whether there was a significant difference between these two groups. Examination of the means and t-test at No (1) BEHS Insein (t=12.19, df = 58, MD=14.90, ***p<.001) and No (2) BEHS Mayangone (t=13.08, df=58, MD=4.90, ***p<.001) indicated that students who were taught by concept-based teaching demonstrated significantly better than those who were taught as formal instruction. In this study, (15) items questionnaires were used to observe the students’ attitudes towards general science learning through concept-based teaching. The results showed that the students expressed their willingness to learn in concept-based teaching and they had positive attitudes towards this concept-based teaching. Research findings proved that concept-based teaching has positive contribution to the science teaching at the middle school level.