So it seems: - smaller class sizes with qualified teachers are helpful - larger class sizes are harmful - smaller class sizes with less qualified teachers not helpful, but they could when these new teachers gain more experience Is there really a good argument for making class sizes larger, other than wanting to save some money? It seems to me, that slowly making class sizes smaller is the answer. This would allow school boards to hire qualified teachers, thereby increasing student learning outcomes.
There are big questions about class size research and also the interpretation of the research, e.g., how is achievement measured? Depending on how it is measured you got totally different results. John Hattie has for the last 15 years attacked teacher's requests for lower class sizes based on his 'evidence'. It is important for teachers to know a little about this so called 'evidence' to ensure Hattie's meme - 'class size does not matter' does not get spread unchallenged. A review of Hattie's evidence is here - visablelearning.blogspot.com/
Hattie's book Visible Learning 2009 contains the same argument as his 2005 paper, "The paradox of class size reduction". What he did in 2009, was remove all the individual papers that he used in his 2005 paper and just keep the 3 big - meta-analyses and he just average these 3 meta-analyses.
I've looked in detail at these 3 meta-analyses and shown that Hattie misrepresents them. All 3 conclude that class size reductions make a significant improvement in student achievement - the opposite of Hattie's claim. Details here -visablelearning.blogspot.com/p/class-size.html
There are many issues with Hattie's analysis. Firstly, on p. 397 he claims he compares reductions of 25 down to 15. This is NOT the case, e.g. the largest study, Glass & Smith (1978) graphs a range of DIFFERENT class size reductions (look at the graph in my blog) and Hattie just averages all of these.
Prof Glass responded to Hattie's interpretation of his study - "Averaging class size reduction effects over a range of reductions makes no sense to me. It's the curve that counts. Reductions from 40 to 30 bring about negligible achievement effects. From 20 to 10 is a different story. "
So it seems:
- smaller class sizes with qualified teachers are helpful
- larger class sizes are harmful
- smaller class sizes with less qualified teachers not helpful, but they could when these new teachers gain more experience
Is there really a good argument for making class sizes larger, other than wanting to save some money? It seems to me, that slowly making class sizes smaller is the answer. This would allow school boards to hire qualified teachers, thereby increasing student learning outcomes.
Who is this guy.
There are big questions about class size research and also the interpretation of the research, e.g., how is achievement measured? Depending on how it is measured you got totally different results. John Hattie has for the last 15 years attacked teacher's requests for lower class sizes based on his 'evidence'. It is important for teachers to know a little about this so called 'evidence' to ensure Hattie's meme - 'class size does not matter' does not get spread unchallenged. A review of Hattie's evidence is here - visablelearning.blogspot.com/
can you send the link again? do you have a refutation on the merit of his 2005 meta analysis?
Hattie's book Visible Learning 2009 contains the same argument as his 2005 paper, "The paradox of class size reduction". What he did in 2009, was remove all the individual papers that he used in his 2005 paper and just keep the 3 big - meta-analyses and he just average these 3 meta-analyses.
I've looked in detail at these 3 meta-analyses and shown that Hattie misrepresents them. All 3 conclude that class size reductions make a significant improvement in student achievement - the opposite of Hattie's claim. Details here -visablelearning.blogspot.com/p/class-size.html
There are many issues with Hattie's analysis. Firstly, on p. 397 he claims he compares reductions of 25 down to 15. This is NOT the case, e.g. the largest study, Glass & Smith (1978) graphs a range of DIFFERENT class size reductions (look at the graph in my blog) and Hattie just averages all of these.
Prof Glass responded to Hattie's interpretation of his study - "Averaging class size reduction effects over a range of reductions makes no sense to me. It's the curve that counts. Reductions from 40 to 30 bring about negligible achievement effects. From 20 to 10 is a different story. "