This proposal is based on the results of the action research at Nazarbayev Intellectual School (NIS) in Kazakhstan. In Global Perspectives course students learn how to do projects, research credible information, solve global issues. Subjects in high school curriculum cover complex topics and most teachers feel that they have to deliver a lot of information within one hour.  Educators recognize Conceptual Teaching, as well as Conceptual Learning, has a lot of benefits for students in terms of developing their perception of the subject topics. According to Schill and Howell (2011, p. 40), putting the learning process in the “concepts” allows students to understand the topics “at a much deeper level”. Erickson (2006) says that concept-based instructions deepen understanding of knowledge and help students structure their learning. Thus, by teaching students to connect topics with big concepts they will become critical thinkers and be able to find relevant solutions to 21^st century global issue (Erickson, 2002). According to the International Baccalaureate Organization (2012), conceptual learning provides more opportunities to integrate subjects within the concepts. Moreover, students can evaluate perspectives and generalize opinions. The conceptual approach increases thinking at high levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (1956). Higher order thinking involves the transformation of information and ideas. Studying concepts includes exploring content, thus, can facilitate students to research a link between concepts by learning facts (Rusman, 2010).

Education today is getting more competitive and demanding for young people. Students are expected to think globally and solve many problems integrating many approaches and subjects. Brady (2008, p. 276) states that modern school requires from students “to view reality as composed of fragmented and unrelated bits of information”. She says that one of the important skills children get in the classroom is organization and integration what they learn so that they can see the “big picture” (Brady, 2008, p.65). Jan D. McCoy and Leanne R. Ketterlin-Geller (2004, p. 88) studied the problem connected with difficulties of studying facts in the classroom without understanding larger concepts. The researchers concluded that using the concept-based approaches helped students to raise their performance. The authors proved that using concept-based model in the lesson helped to integrate the diversity of facts but also to understand the topic from many perspectives. Many examples of studies proved the effectiveness of conceptual model in the classroom as a tool to develop students’ metacognition, critical thinking, and performance. However, there is a limited amount of research on conceptual learning in the context of developing countries. The implementation of concept-based learning in Asia, which is culturally a different context, provides another valuable opportunity for exploring the possibilities conceptual learning assumes to endorse for the learners. Also, there are little examples how concept-based teaching affects students’ research skills within subjects where project work is undertaken.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the influence of concept-based learning toward research skills on high school students.  This study aimed to explore and address the following questions: a) how students’ research skills are influenced by conceptual teaching, and b) how teachers perceive the impact of concept-based teaching on students’ performance.

The study used various sources and methods for collecting and analyzing data. However, it heavily relies on the results of the semi-structured interviews that were conducted with teachers and students. Maximal variation purposeful sampling included Global Perspectives, History teachers and two groups of Year 11, each group having twelve students. Apart from the research intervention, each group had the same curriculum, same number of Global Perspectives lessons per week and same teachers. In order to identify the problems students had in researching topics, student mini-projects of the first term were analyzed for how they develop facts and ideas. The findings showed that students were struggling with revealing the topic of their mini-projects, analyzing it from more than one perspective, and generalizing the ideas. Using the action research model outlined in Ary et al. (2014), a repeatable cycle of four steps was introduced: Reflect, Plan, Act, Observe. The initial reflection step in this study included the recognition of problems with students’ research skills in studying global issues. It was decided to structure lessons using concept-based approach, incorporating different techniques and methods. The main idea of using concepts was not to replace content but to bring purpose to the content students were exploring (Global Perspectives and Project Work Teachers Guide 2017). In the framework of the course, the students explored such concepts as diversity, change, evolution, conflict, etc. To develop understanding of the concepts, the teacher used inductive or deductive approaches where the students investigated more sources and facts to come up with the concept. Classroom observations through taking field notes was used to document the participants’ experiences when they were given concept-based instructions. In addition, the participants were asked to share their perceptions and opinions regarding conceptual learning. After four weeks of the first research cycle, it was observed that the content of the students’ projects was improved by using more facts and perspectives. The students were able to generalize their findings into quality conclusions. On reflection, it was decided to continue the study but repeat the first methods and techniques in a larger task for the students, namely their term paper which is a project. This reflection was the first step of the second cycle of the action research.

The findings of the study showed that a large majority of students and teachers liked to learn within conceptual framework of the lesson. They mentioned that they could structure the topics and make connections between them; moreover, it helped them to prepare for assessment as understanding of an important concept maintained the perception of the issue in a larger scale. For example, while exploring the concept ‘process’, the students researched the problem of migration in the world or the emigration of skilled citizens from Kazakhstan. Also, discussing the question about the influence of trilingual education on academic performance, students came up with the concept ‘change’ by looking for statistics and investigating official documents. Thus, findings from the interviews together with observations showed that concept-based teaching has many benefits for the students as they learned: • to explore big topics; • to look for related information; • to select credible sources; • to gain deeper understanding of the content; • to integrate concept-based research in other subjects. Conclusion The findings of the study showed that a large majority (65 out of 70) of the students developed further their research skills. Concept-based instructions increased students’ critical thinking and influenced students’ perception of a topic. Following Erickson (2008, 8), the students explored and understood global issues deeper; moreover, considering topics in a larger context, helped the students to structure their learning and knowledge. The findings showed that conceptual learning helped students to link different subjects as they were able to integrate topics and problems. Rusman (2010, 189) also indicated that concept-based instruction is a good way to connect subjects. The students’ performance increased because they could produce integrated mini-projects, they demonstrated deep knowledge of the topic and managed to provide well-studied answers and arguments.

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