Year: 2011
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Large classes are the norm and a cause for concern for many language teachers. Mostprevious research into large classes has surveyed teachers’ beliefs about the size andproblems of large classes. Surprisingly, there has been no previous research in Englishlanguage teaching into the effects of class size on learning. This study examines therelationship between class size and learning for 984 classes of students ranging in size from10 to 103 students for four fundamental English courses at a Thai university. The findingsshow significant negative correlations between class sizes and grades, both for all students onall courses and for those students who studied in very differently sized classes on differentcourses. Furthermore, comparing the grades of students in different classes suggests twothreshold levels of 25 and 45 students per class beyond which learning drops off noticeably.
Source: DergiPark (Istanbul University)
Author: Watson Todd, Richard
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4297917665