The Usefulness and Efficacy of the Center-Based Learning Approach in the Classroom for Teaching Science Subjects on the Students’ Academic Performance: A Quasi-Experimental Study

A typical classroom frequently consists of a single learner who is not all that interested in the subject at hand. Traditional classroom settings generally favor direct, unilateral instruction. According to the conventional view, learners must amass a predetermined body of information. This study aimed to evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of the center-based learning approach in the classroom for teaching science subjects on students' academic performance after exposure to two approaches, the center-based learning approach, and the conventional approach. The study also looked at junior high school science teachers' perceptions of the center-based learning approach's effectiveness to students' learning capabilities based on the Proven Effectiveness Framework (PEF). The research employed a descriptive and quantitative approaches with a quasi-experimental research design. The total population size of the respondents are 60 Grade 10 students out from the 2 sections of San Vicente National High School. The test covered learning competencies found in the Grade 10 junior high school science curriculum. The learning competencies under the MELCs covered topics about volcanoes, earthquakes, epicenters, and mountain ranges. The assessment test consists of 50 multiple-choice questions. Based on the findings, there is a large difference in the results of the experimental group when exposed to CBLA, the mean score is 47.10 with a standard deviation of 4.87 and a p-value of 0.000. Furthermore, after the assessment in the posttest, the control group has a mean score of 30.05, resulting in being highly significant, and mastery level of the students' academic performance after the test is 60.23. This means that the perceptions of the junior high school science teachers in the said indicators were afflicted based on the criteria given. The center-based learning approach outperformed the conventional approach in producing better learning performance in teaching science subjects in junior high school levels, particularly in Grade 10.