Teachers already knew this, but it's always good to have research on your side. From Education Week:
Student Engagement Found to Rise as Class Size Falls
By Debra Viadero
A new British study quantifies and confirms what many teachers have long believed: Students tend to be “off task” more often when they are in larger classes.
The report, by researchers from the University of London Institute of Education, was one of several studies on the educational effects of reducing class sizes that were presented here Monday on the first day of the annual meeting of the Washington-based American Educational Research Association. The March 24-28 event is expected to draw more than 15,000 education scholars from around the world before it ends on Friday.
Studies on class size have long suggested that elementary school pupils tend to learn more in classes of 20 students or fewer. The papers presented yesterday, which were based on studies conducted in the United States and Hong Kong, as well as in the United Kingdom, extend and deepen the discussion on that topic by looking more closely at what goes on inside smaller and larger classes.
In his study of British classrooms, for instance, researcher Peter Blatchford found that both elementary and secondary students benefit from smaller classes and that the benefits at the secondary level are particularly strong for the lowest-achieving students. That study involved 686 students in 27 primary schools and 22 secondary schools in the United Kingdom. Benefits in Britain
More here.
