Does the size of the class matter?

Common sense suggests that smaller classes offer teachers the chance to devote more time to each student so as to improve their learning. In the mid1980s due to growing concern about students’ learning the state of Tennessee launched an experiment to reduce class size (The STAR experiment). Overall, this project concluded that reduced class size raises students’ performance. This finding has caused long-lasting debates among educators and policy-makers.

Since then, many class size studies have been conducted by different authors like Blatchford (1998), Bourke (1986), Pedder (2001), Slavin (1989), Pate-Bain (1986), and so on. However, there is not yet a convincing study that class size reduction is likely to improve people’s learning due to the number of issues related to it.

In 2006 a few experts in educational research conducted a study in Wisconsin addressing the relationship between class size and teaching. They focused their research on the implementation of the SAGE (Student Achievement Guarantee in Education) program in nine high-poverty schools. Overall they suggest that class size is just one element in the educational system:
Teacher action, student outcomes, teacher–Students’ interaction, and the content of instruction are intertwined but in a complex way (Graue, Hatch, Rao, and Oen, 2006: 673).
They thought that small classes have plenty of advantages for teaching because class size reduction allows teachers to create meaningful learning opportunities for students.

Nevertheless, in this positive context, not every teacher takes advantage of it and sometimes they teach in the same way in a large and a small class. That is why Hanushek argues that,
It appears that ultimate effect of any large-scale program to reduce class size will depend much more importantly on the quality of new teachers hired than on the effects of class size reduction per se (1998: 35)

On the other hand, we can not deny that teachers’ instructions and practices can be damaged by large classes and it affects directly pupils’ learning due to less time in larger classes for academic interactions, teachers might decide to reduce their use of open-ended, higher-order questions that probe pupil’s understandings and reasoning and make greater use of lower-order questions as a way of speeding up interactions
Teacher’s practices on one hand, but on the other students’ learning. We can also find research addressing the topic from the students' point of view. These studies have affirmed that there is sufficient evidence that class reduction can improve students’ outcomes. However, they recognized that class reduction is worth implementing in certain contexts like in early grades, students with disciplinarian issues, students with learning problems and students living in poverty but not always. By having a large number of students in a classroom, there are also great opportunities for more interaction, more contribution, and more cooperative work.

Considering this finding, we can say that class size is only one element in the whole process of teaching and learning and the implementation of class reduction cannot be a random decision. In order to identify those particular large classes which would be affected positively with class reduction, it is necessary to conduct serious and accurate studies before arriving into any decision.