Reports on the replication of a study of teaching styles from the 1970s. Explores possible relationships between class size and the quality of teaching in 60 classrooms. Suggests some reasons for teachers choosing teaching strategies that are ineffective. (DDR)

Clear funding/achievement relationships are emerging from the recent body of production-function research. Money does matter in producing educational outcomes. Factors such as small class size and teacher experience can drive up instructional costs. Schools cannot operate efficiently with scanty resources. Equalizing quality resource inputs is a…

Although class-size reductions cannot guarantee better student performance, the Tennessee and Wisconsin experiences, along with other studies, suggest that successful programs share key characteristics: concentration in the primary schooling years, classes with not more than 20 students, greater benefits for urban minority students, and alignment…

Tennessee's Project STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio) randomly assigned 7,000 K-3 students to small classes (13-17 pupils), regular classes (22-26 pupils), and regular-with-aide classes. Small classes ameliorate large schools' effects, reduce grade retention and discipline problems, benefit minority students substantially, allow students…

Reviews trends in different countries regarding educational reform at the primary and secondary levels in terms of educational quality, funding, teacher salaries, class size, and decentralization. Suggests that, even in Japan and other industrialized nations, there is movement away from the constraints of a uniform system. (SK)

The willingness of 104 college students to seek instructor help was studied as a function of student age and class size and whether a supportive statement was placed on the syllabus. Students were more willing to seek help when offered the support. Younger students were less willing in the neutral condition. (SLD)

Suggests that RAND's claims to have overturned conventional research wisdom on connections between school expenditures, class size, teacher pay, and student achievement are highly problematic, explaining that its report drew sweeping conclusions from average statewide data from just 44 states, and the data analysis is subject to significant…

Investigates differential effects of small classes on academic achievement among disadvantaged elementary students using data from Tennessee's Student Achievement Ratio Project. While positive effects of small classes are evident on both reading and mathematics achievement, there is no evidence of differential effects for low socioeconomic status…

Conducted a 6-year followup of almost 4,000 students in Project STAR in Tennessee, a 4-year, large-scale randomized experiment on the effects of class size. Though follow-up data could not be obtained on more than one-half of the students, class size effects persisted for at least 6 years and remained large enough to be of importance for…

Explains innovations taking place in large English-as-a-foreign-language classrooms in Pakistan. Describes a pilot project that investigated ways of bringing out effective learning in large classes. (Author/VWL)

The disparities between the scholastic achievements of girls and boys have been attributed to biological and sociological factors. The present study investigated the validity of these explanations in a multi-variable situation similar to field conditions. Achievement scores of 3446 pupils in the 5th through 11th grades, half girls and half boys,…

Whether hierarchical logistic regression can reduce the sample size requirement for estimating optimal cutoff scores in a course placement service where predictive validity is measured by a threshold utility function is explored. Data from courses with varying class size were randomly partitioned into two halves per course. Nonhierarchical and…

This article is a general summary of the James Flack Norris Award Lecture given in November 2003. It chronicles various events leading up to the award centering on teaching chemistry to very large classes and providing information to the general public through a unique University Office for Science and Society.

The authors examined the conditions that promote or discourage engagement in the classroom among kindergarten students. Engagement included learning behaviors (on-task behavior) and pro- and antisocial behavior. The authors examined 3 policy-manipulable features of kindergarten classrooms: (a) whether the class met for a half day or full day, (b)…

This investigation addressed 3 questions about the long-term effects of early school experiences: (a) Is participation in small classes in the early grades (K-3) related to high school graduation? (b) Is academic achievement in K-3 related to high school graduation? (c) If class size is related to graduation, is the relationship explained by the…