Effect Of Class Size On The Academic Performance Of Junior Secondary School Students In English Language

 

Effect Of Class Size On The Academic Performance Of Junior Secondary School Students In English Language

Literature Review

            How to assign and distribute resources to most effectively improve the objectives of the educational system is one of the most significant and most enduring questions that is faced by the educational researchers and as well as policy makers. Among the most significant allocation decisions is the decisions regarding the designation of the instructional staff to class, which include the process of knowing the class size and whether or not ancillary institutional staff, like classroom aids, should be applied. Controlling the class size is considered as a policy option that is becoming more and more popular in the world (Nye, Hedges and Konstantopoulos, 2000).

            The issue about class size has been debated and tackled by educations by centuries. In actual fact, one study can be traced writing on the topic to the Babylonian Talmud, in which the maximum size of bible classes was specified as 25 pupils (Angrist and Lavy, 1996). Currently, there are already more than 100 empirical studies of class size that have been completed (Finn and Achilles, 1999).

            There is an agreement in the field of education that smaller classes enable a better quality of teaching and increase the effectiveness of learning. This led to the policy changes regarding class size reduction in different nations, such as USA, the UK, the Netherlands, and different East Asian countries, like China, Hong Kong, Macau, Korea and Japan (Blatchford and Lai, n.d.). However, this policy is somewhat controversial, because there are some who argued that the impacts of class size reduction are meek and that there are other cost effective strategies in order to improve the standard of education (Rivkin et al., 2005). Notwithstanding the important policy and practice implications of the issue, there has been a wide gap between the beliefs of the professionals (small classes are apt to lead to better teaching and student academic progress) – and research findings which have not always been clear (Brühwiler and Blatchford, 2010).

            Different studies showed that attention needs to flow from studies of the impacts on academic outcomes towards better understanding of processes inside the classroom that are involved (Finn et al., 2003; Anderson, 2000). The most consistent findings which materialized focused on the impact of the class size on the individualization of teaching and engagement inside the classroom (Finn et al., 2003; Anderson, 2000). Different models have been suggested the possible impacts on the classroom processes, however, up until now; there is no research which connects the relationship between class size, classroom processes and academic outcomes in formal manner. In addition, there are boundaries and restrictions in the measures and tools that were used in order to capture the processes inside the classroom. Most often than not, studies focuses on informal and subjective manner (Finn et al., 2003). Where systematic measures have been applied and used, they commonly focus on the restricted observations inside the classroom (Blatchford, et al., 2005). Furthermore, information on other types of processes, such as participation, interest as well as quality of teaching has not often or infrequently collected. Thus, it is disputed that there is a place for a systematic approach in processing that have been recognized and acknowledge in more qualitative and anecdotal studies of effects of class size. One approach which can be employed is the use of student perception and preferences regarding the classroom processes (Lüdtke, et al., 2009). The studies of Clausen (2002) and Gruehn (2000) in the German environment showed that pupil reports are highly consistent if averaged on class level, thus, they are considered as good predictors of the learning outcome of the students (cited from Brühwiler and Blatchford, 2010).

            Currently, there is no agreement which exist in literature regarding the impacts of class size on higher education setting. The studies of Williams et al. (1985) and Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) showed that the overall evidence found in the study proposed that class size plays no or little impact on the achievement of the student. In addition, the study of McKeachie (1980) and McKeachie, Iran-Nejad and Berliner (1990) have presented some arguments that class size is the fundamental environmental factors that college faculty must contend with in the process of developing effective and efficient teaching strategies. Both of the authors argued that class size may not be vital in the courses best matched for lecture style learning, courses geared in promotion of critical thinking as well as advanced problem solving, are all best to be taught in smaller classroom environment (Kokkelenberg, Dillon and Christy, 2008).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 

Anderson, L.W. (2000). ‘Why should reduced class size lead to increased student achievement?’. In: M.C. Wang and J.D. Finn (eds.). How small classes help teachers do their best (3 – 24). Temple University Center for Research in Human Developer, Philadephia.

 

Angrist, J. D. and Lavy, V. (1996). Using Madimonieds’ rule to estimate the effect of class size on children’s academic achievement. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Economics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

 

Blatchford, P., Bassett, P. and Brown, P. (2005). ‘Teachers’ and pupils’ behavior in large and small classess: a systematic observation study of pupils aged 10 and 11 years’. Journal of Education Psychology. 97, 545 – 467.

 

Brühwiler, C. and Blatchford, P. (2010). ‘Effects of class size and adaptive teaching competency on classroom processes and academic outcome’. Learning and Instruction. 1 – 14.

 

Finn, J. and Achilles, C. (1999). ‘Tenessee’s class size study: Findings, implications, misconceptions’. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Summer, 21(2), 97 – 109.

 

Finn, J.D., Pannozzo, G.M. and Achilles, C.M. (2003). ‘The “why’s” of class size student behaviour in small classes’. Review of Educational Research. 73, 321 – 368.

 

Kokkelenberg, E., Dillon, M. and Christy, S. (2008). ‘The effects of class size on student grades at a public university’. Economics of Education Review. 27(2), 221 – 233.

 

Lüdtke, O., Robitzsch, A., Trautwein, U. and Kunter, M. (2009). ‘Assessing the impact of learning environments: How to use student ratings of classroom or school characteristics in multilevel modeling’. Contemporary Educational Psychology. 34, 120 – 131.

 

McKeachie, W.J. (1980). ‘Class size large classes in multiple sections’. Academe. 2, 24 – 28.

 

McKeachie, W.J., Iran-Nejad, I. and Berliner, D. C. (1990). ‘The multi-source nature of learning, an introduction’. Review of Educational Research. 60 (4), 509 – 516.

 

Nye, B., Hedges, L. and Konstantopoulos, S. (2000). ‘The effects of small classes on academic achievement: The results of the Tennessee class size experiment’. American Educational Research Journal. Spring, vol. 37(1), 123 – 151.

 

Pascarella, E.T. and Terenzini, P.T. (1991). How college affects students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

 

Rivkin, E.A., Hanushek, E.A. and Kain, J.F. (2005). ‘Teachers, schools and academic achievement’. Econometrica. 73, 417 – 458.

Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com