The search for a relationship between academic performance and class size has and academic performance has been a long and a perplexing one for different academics throughout the globe. Although several factors have been proposed by different scholars for the cause of poor performance, few have been conducted to find out the correlation between good academic achievement and class size. Different studies have therefore been initiated to examine this relationship for students in several selected institutions of learning including elementary, secondary and even tertiary education. These studies have been done to support the general view that smaller classes are more preferred to larger ones due to their contribution to good performance (Glaeser et al. 1992). A revision of the staff to student ratio as well as class size will assist to improve academic performance.
The effect that the current increasing rate of class sizes particularly in the tertiary education system has not been understood. Most of the studies conducted have used records of the performance of the same students in different courses with both small and large classes. A particular study recorded an observation of a decrease of almost 9% from a class of 56 to 89 (Moretti 2004).
In the policy and academic circles, the organization of university education has increasingly been in the spotlight. This is because of the high demand for university education throughout the world that has contributed to a doubling rate of student admission in the tertiary institutions. Researches that have been done recently have stressed on the significance of positive provision of externalities within firms, local labor markets and economic growth initiatives by the higher education institutions (Moretti 2004: Glaeser et al. 1992: Aghion et al. 2007). Most of the policies in some countries are to blame for the dramatic increase of enrolment in the universities. A 4% increase in enrolment has for instance been observed.
The United Kingdom has not been left out either judging from their increases in both the masters and undergraduate levels. However the UK is at the low end of the enrolment growth (Glaeser et al. 1992). However the effects of this increasing class room size is not yet well understood. A review of the effects of class size on academic performance is as a result of great significance.
A study was carried out in a leading university in the UK from 1999 to 2004. In the study, the impact of class the size of the class to the final exam results of graduate students was observed (Aghion et al. 2007). When the same students were exposed to different class sizes of varied courses, performance varied by around 7% across the courses pursued. This shed a light on the extent of student performance differences according to different class sizes. As expected, the effect of class size to student performance was negative. Students were observed to generally perform poorly in bigger classes. Specific observations, had records of some students receiving considerably lower marks in the larger classes (Moretti 2004).
How are teachers affected by the changing class sizes? Teachers are not left out in the debate and researches on the impacts of class sizes on academic performance. In an attempt to highlight on the mechanisms for effects of class size, information on assignments from the teachers was used as well as the student characteristics. Research observed that lectures are independent of the number of student they teach. Faculties of the same quality are often used for the same students only that courses are different. However there are often a number of cases whereby lecturers are often overwhelmed by the extra work load from their growing classes. Most of the assignments delivered by the lectures are in several cases not comprehensively marked with great attention to detail due to the increased student papers that need extra time to study (Glaeser et al. 1992). There are similarly researches that have proven that most of the lectures do not alter their behavior with changing class sizes.
The analysis from the study therefore has significant policy implications. It is evident that class size is important both for the able and not so wealthy students. The reduction of class size is however not really the most effective strategy. A reduction in the size of the large modules could however be an effective mechanism to improve students’ academic performance. The student to staff ratio should also be reconsidered as well as student behavior and resource availability. There is also a general implication that larger classes create a reduction in the tutoring activities as compared to the deterioration of conditions in the classrooms. Student should be able to compensate for the classroom size increases through ensuring there is an overall improvement in the student behaviors and attitudes.
References
Aghion, P., L. Boustan, C. Hoxby, and J. Vandenbussche (2007), “Exploiting States' Mistakes to
Identify the Causal Impact of Higher Education on Growth”, mimeo, Harvard University.
Glaeser, E. L., H. D. Kallal, J. Scheinkman, and A.Shleifer (1992), "Growth in Cities", Journal
Of Political Economy 100: 1126-51.
Moretti, E. (2004), "Workers' Education, Spillovers and Productivity: Evidence from Plant-Level
Production Functions", American Economic Review 94: 656-90.
