Most introductory courses are held in large lecture halls, with students typically sitting in either the front, middle, or back of the classroom. In a mixed-methods study of student attendance, performance, and seat choice, we found that students who chose to sit behind their peers performed nearly a full grade level worse than their peers who sat…

Cohort scheduling intentionally places students in the same sections of several classes (e.g., biology, algebra, and writing) with a consistent peer group and is typically done for small groups (<30 students) to enable better interaction among students. The goal of this study was to compare cohort scheduling to traditional scheduling methods…

This report looks at the provision of GCSE subjects in England in 2023. Provision in a subject is defined as the number or percentage of schools with at least one student taking the subject. It could be argued that this may not cover all the 'provision', since schools might offer to provide a subject but none of their students wants to study it.…

The shift from the traditional self-contained classroom to the departmentalized classroom structure in upper-elementary classrooms is increasing as the pressure to maximize student outcomes is higher than ever for public schools. Teachers prefer departmentalization but findings as to its benefits for students are mixed. This study considers the…

Existing research examines whether studying with teachers of the same race/ethnicity affects student achievement, but little is known about whether those effects vary by timing and frequency. We use 7 years of administrative data from third through eighth graders in Indiana to estimate the heterogenous links between same race/ethnicity teachers…

The question of where students sit in a classroom has been widely studied under different approaches since the beginning of the 20th century. In this study, the data related to the seating location of the students in the computer-aided design practice lecture at the university were recorded and arranged, to analyse their seating preferences, their…

This study explores the multilayered meanings of classroom seating order -- a crucial spatial element of school life -- and its influences on children's experiences. Drawing on fieldwork in a secondary school in northwest China, I ethnographically examine how school educators impose a hierarchy of seats in moral terms. My study shows that…

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of students' seating location in a large, lecture-style university course on student engagement, attention, classroom learning experience, and course performance. Participants (N = 407) were students in two cohorts of an undergraduate financial accounting course at a large university in the…

Multilevel modeling techniques were used with a sample of 643 students enrolled in 37 secondary school classrooms to predict future student achievement (controlling for baseline achievement) from observed teacher interactions with students in the classroom, coded using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System--Secondary. After accounting for prior…

Multilevel modeling techniques were used with a sample of 643 students enrolled in 37 secondary school classrooms to predict future student achievement (controlling for baseline achievement) from observed teacher interactions with students in the classroom, coded using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System--Secondary. After accounting for prior…

The aims of the present study are to investigate whether and how teachers change in their observed classroom quality (emotional and instructional support, classroom organization, and students' engagement; measured with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System observation measure for secondary school [CLASS-S]; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2006)…

Seating arrangements are important classroom setting events because they have the potential to help prevent problem behaviours that decrease student attention and diminish available instructional time. The purpose of this synthesis of empirical literature is to determine which arrangements of desks best facilitate positive academic and behavioural…

Teacher organization is a crucial part of classroom functioning; however, its relation to student achievement has not been investigated as extensively as that of instruction. In this study, organization is defined as the amount of time teachers spend explaining the purpose and procedures of learning activities and daily routines. Data from…

A meta-analysis of findings from 31 separate studies showed that ability grouping has significant positive effects on the academic performance of elementary school children. The benefits of grouping tended to be small in the typical study of achievement --an increase from the 50th to the 58th percentile for the typical student in a grouped class.…

Studied the existence of optimal classes (classes in which students reach maximal individual achievement with little difference in outcomes within the class) in two German samples from a reading literacy study, representing more than 270 classes of eighth graders. Findings show different proportions of optimal classes in the five basic German…