Class size reduction: debunking a ‘myth’ and refocusing the class size debate

Abstract

In early 2015, the director of education and skills at the OECD addressed the ‘Seven big myths about top-performing school systems’ (Schleicher, BBC, 2015). At number 4 on his list was the ‘myth’ that class size reduction (CSR) can raise standards. Other observers have pointed to large-scale international comparisons of educational performances which show East Asian students consistently outperforming their western counterparts (see PIRLS, TIMSS and PISA reports). These tests and reports have prompted some western commentators to label the East Asian school system as the “world’s best performing” system (Mourshed, Chijioke, and Barber, 2010) while the Grattan Institute suggests that large class sizes appear to be a trade-off for greater academic achievement in its analysis of school systems in Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai (Jenson, Hunter, Sonnermann and Burns, 2012). In this paper I argue that such views represent a worrying development for teachers in that they take us away from one of the most important aspects of the class size debate, namely what really happens to teaching and learning “on the ground” when class sizes are reduced from the norm (Bascia and Faubert, 2012). Most class size studies have tended to focus on pupil academic outcomes at the expense of more nuanced, contextualised examinations of teaching and learning processes in reduced-size classes. There is also a paucity of research on CSR in secondary schools, even though the extensive body of research on small classes in early childhood contexts is used by policy makers to make decisions on CSR in secondary schools. This paper draws on extensive classroom data from Hong Kong secondary schools including lesson transcripts, teacher reports, the powerful, but under-researched student voice and a comparison of teachers’ pedagogy in large and small classes where the teachers and teaching input were the same, which represents an original research approach. In this paper I suggest that these processes might be just as important as test scores. Drawing on classroom observations I address the important issue of whether there is a more appropriate pedagogy in small classes and what it might look like. I also deliberate on whether the principles of effective teaching are actually universal. Equally, are there practices which do not work as well in small classes? I set out to present different ways in which CSR should be examined in conjunction with crucial factors like professional development, curriculum change, pedagogical innovation and teacher training.