Abstract

• The major purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of discovery learning in teaching lower secondary science. The study was conducted with both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Firstly, a descriptive study was made to explore whether there is a link between the junior assistant science teachers� teaching-learning activities and the six stages of discovery learning cycle. The subjects for this study were selected from the Yangon City Development Area by using a stratified random sampling method. A total of (198) junior assistant science teachers from (36) schools were selected for the study. According to the results, the activities of the junior assistant science teachers are strongly linked with the engagement and readiness stage, but weakly linked with the exploration and discovery stage of the discovery learning cycle. Secondly, an experimental study was used to investigate the effectiveness of discovery learning. In this experimental study, the subjects were Grade Six students selected from the schools where there have moderate teachers' teaching-learning activities on discovery learning in each strata. The experimental design adopted in this study was one of the quasi-experimental designs, namely, nonequivalent control group design. The experimental group was treated with discovery learning and the control group was taught by using teacher-centered method. After that, a posttest was administered to two groups. Independent samples t-test was used to test whether there were significant differences between the two groups. Findings indicated that those who received a treatment by using discovery learning demonstrated significantly better than those who do not received it. Findings proved that discovery learning has positive contribution to the science teaching at the middle school level and could encourage the improvement of students� higher order thinking skills.