The fewer students in the class do not guarantee academic excellence ... but these are its advantages

Laila Ali

Small class sizes in schools that have fewer students are seen as highly desirable by parents especially, since with small class sizes, teachers can more easily control each student and give them more attention. As such, many countries set a maximum class size, often around 30 pupils.

The size of the classroom remains a subject of intense debate in many education systems around the world, because determining the optimum number of students in a classroom is supposed to increase the quality of teaching and student learning.

As reducing the class size provides a high-quality learning environment. Hence, it is not surprising that the broad audience is enthusiastic about smaller classes. Also, reducing the class size will lead to more effective teaching, which will subsequently lead to increased student learning and performance. This justifies the continued interest in the effectiveness of class size reduction on student performance by policy makers, school systems, and researchers.

Nevertheless, a new statistical analysis of the data from a long-term study on the teaching of mathematics and science found that smaller class sizes are not always associated with better performance and achievement for students.

The results of the research paper, which was published this December, stated that the effect of class sizes on students ’performance varies by country, by subject matter, by years of study, and by other factors, according to the Taylor & Francis website for publishing scientific studies.

Previous studies concerned with the effect of class sizes on academic performance generally proved to be inconclusive, as some studies found benefits, and some did not find them useful. Moreover, these studies were often small in size, and they may tend to focus on the effect of class size on reading and mathematics, and did not take into account the effect of class size on non-cognitive skills such as interest and attention.

Extensive study and accurate results
In an attempt to obtain a clearer picture, Professor Spiros Constantopoulos and Ting Chen of Michigan State University in the United States decided to analyze the data produced by "Trends in Mathematics and International Science" (TISS) every four years since 1995, monitored "TISS" Performance and achievement of fourth graders (9-10) and eighth grade (13-14) from about 50 countries in the subjects of mathematics and science, where the academic ability of students is recorded in these two subjects and their self-position and reporting their interest in them, and also contains information on classroom sizes .

To make the analysis more measurable, the researchers in this study were limited to analyzing data for eighth graders only in four European countries, namely Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and Slovenia, and these four countries were chosen because they all impose the maximum sizes for the chapters, which will help to make the statistical analysis more reliable.

The researchers analyzed the data of these students collected by TISs in 2003, 2007 and 2011. The analyzed data included 4,277 students from 231 classes in 151 schools, which makes them much larger than most previous studies that examined the size and impact of classrooms.

It was also the first study to examine the effects of class size on specific scientific subjects, including biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences, and non-cognitive skills.

Results
The analysis revealed that the sizes of small classes have benefits and advantages in Romania and Lithuania, but this did not apply to both Hungary and Slovenia. The most beneficial effects were in Romania, where the smaller classes were associated with a greater academic achievement in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and earth sciences, as well as a greater enjoyment of mathematics learning.

In Lithuania, smaller class sizes were mainly associated with improvements in non-cognitive skills, such as increased enjoyment of biology and chemistry, rather than higher academic achievement in these subjects. It was also noted that the beneficial effects appear only in certain school years.

"Reducing the class size does not automatically guarantee improvements in student performance, as there are many processes and other classroom dynamics that should work well to achieve successful results in student learning," said Professor Constantopoulos.

Researchers believe that smaller class sizes may have more beneficial effects on students in Romania and Lithuania compared to Hungary and Slovenia because schools in Romania and Lithuania have fewer resources. "This conclusion may be due to the fact that class size impacts are likely to be discovered in countries with limited school resources where the quality of teachers is mostly poor," said Professor Constantopoulos.