Class size research has a protracted and controversial history, especially in the USA, England, and Australia. Is there evidence that pupils taught in smaller classes do better in academic and other non-cognitive outcomes than pupils in larger classes?
Many policymakers and political commentators world-wide suggest that funding isn’t the problem in education. They claim that much of the increased expenditure on education in the last 20 to 30 years has been ‘wasted’ on efforts to reduce class sizes, arguing that this extra funding does not lead to better academic results.
Most of this policy advice and commentary relies heavily on misquoting from Visible Learning by Prof John Hattie and work by selected education econometricians who suggest that the majority of studies around the world have shown that class size reductions do not significantly improve student outcomes.
Commentators and politicians alike point to high performing systems such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, where large class sizes are the norm, as evidence that reducing class sizes is a futile exercise. But research indicates that students from Confucian heritage cultures are socialised in ways that make them amenable to work in large classes, so that management problems are minimal and teachers can focus on meaningful learning using whole-class methods. An educational system forms a working whole, each component interacting with all other components. Isolating any one component (such as class size) and transplanting it into a different system shows a deep misunderstanding of how educational systems work.
Reducing class size to increase student achievement is an approach that has been tried, debated, and analysed for many decades. The premise seems logical: with fewer students to teach, teachers should achieve better academic outcomes for all students. For those who choose private education for their children, it is often cited as a major consideration. However, for policymakers there are three major questions to answer with the adoption of any change or new program: how effective will the change be; how much will it cost; and what are the problems of implementation, including the support or opposition of the stakeholders – in this case principals, teachers and parents – and those who implement it
Policy makers, politicians and media too often discuss data about class sizes and their impact on student learning without an evidence base, relying largely on second-hand research or anecdotes. Too frequently, advocates for particular positions select their evidence, conveniently ignoring research that raises questions about their favoured position.
The class size debate should be more about weighing up the cost-benefit of class size reductions (CSR), and how best to achieve the desired outcomes of improved academic achievement for all children, regardless of their background.
Many creditable and peer reviewed research projects have concluded that extra gains associated with long-term attendance in small classes (in the early grades) appeared not only for tests of measured achievement, but also for other measures of success in education and that these gains continued to appear when students – including students that are traditionally disadvantaged in education - were returned to standard classes in the upper grades. These research works also revealed that extra gains from small classes in the early grades are larger when class size is reduced to fewer than 20 students. In other words, when planned thoughtfully and funded adequately, long-term exposure to small classes in the early grades generates substantial advantages for students.
Copyright 2021 © M. Eduarda Oliveira Canto