Despite the existence of a considerable and current educational literature concerned with the effect of class size on student achievement, the results of attempts to empirically identify the relationship between the variables class size and student achievement are mixed at best. These attempts have typically been hindered, however, by the…

A study of writing by high school seniors and first-year college students found that classroom conditions were a large factor in student improvement. Larger class sizes in high school and less time devoted strictly to writing were the chief detriments to improvement in the seniors' writing.

The teaching faculty for this course sought to address their own concerns about the quality of student learning in an impersonal large lecture biology class for majors, the difficulties in getting to know each student by name, and difficulties in soliciting answers and reactions from the students during the lecture. Questions addressed by this…

This article presents findings of a study conducted to determine instructors' perceptions of optimal class sizes for online courses with different levels of interaction. Implications for research and practice are also presented. A Web-based survey method was employed. Online courses studied were those taught sometime in the last 5 years by a…

The authors assessed five commonly perceived barriers to increased use of conceptual teaching in mathematics in the United States related to teacher autonomy, trade-offs with computational strategies, student achievement, class size, and teacher qualifications. These barriers were examined through the use of data from nationally representative…

This paper investigates urban-rural and size effects on public upper secondary school efficiency in Northern Thailand. Efficiency is assessed by a nonparametric technique, namely data envelopment analysis. Urban-rural and size effects are examined through a Mann-Whitney nonparametric statistical test and by Tobit regression analysis, respectively.…

In this paper we analyze class size effects in the case of primary schools in Poland. We use two empirical strategies to avoid endogeneity bias. First, we use average class size in a grade as an instrumental variable for actual class size. This allows us to control for within school selection of pupils with different abilities to classes of…

The purpose of this study was to compare the beliefs and attitudes of teachers in conventional schools versus teachers in schools with implementations of Direct Instruction (DI). Teachers were asked to take sides on statements about classroom practices as well as related educational and professional issues. The results revealed statistically…

The purpose of this paper is to report on the methodology, findings, and implications of two meta-analyses of class size. It begins with an explanation of a graph that indicates smaller classes result in increased pupil achievement. Next, summaries are provided of meta-analyses 1 and 2, followed by an extensive critique. The paper concludes that…

This critique of two recent meta-analyses of class size research is unique among all previous studies and reports published by Educational Research Service. It was made necessary by two extraordinary reviews of class size research prepared by Gene V Glass and Mary Lee Smith and published by the Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and…

This paper examines how schools choose class size and how households sort in response to those choices. Focusing on the highly liberalized Chilean education market, we develop a model in which schools are heterogeneous in an underlying productivity parameter, class size is a component of school quality, households are heterogeneous in income and…

This study aimed to determine how California secondary physical education teachers perceive the state mandated youth fitness testing for the 5th, 7th, and 9th grades using Fitnessgram. The participants were secondary school physical education teachers (N = 323). A previously validated attitudinal instrument (Keating & Silverman, 2004a) was…

Introductory Statistics is a required course for most college students in order to graduate. Research has been conducted for determinants of achievement in college mathematics courses; however, there has been little investigation for statistics courses. In this exploratory study, data concerning students' grades received in this course, the…

This report examines differences between full-day and half-day kindergarten across the United States using ECLS-K data from schools, teachers, parents and kindergarten children. Described, are the schools, both public and private, that offer these programs and the children who attend them. The report further describes many characteristics of…

Research has focused on four groups of factors and the achievement gap: (1) student characteristics (high school GPA, attendance patterns, courses taken in high school, participation in extra-curricular activities, etc.); (2) family characteristics (family structure, in home, parents' level of education, mobility, etc.); (3) school-based…