The Effects of Class Size on the Achievement of College Students*

Paola, Maria De; Scoppa, Vincenzo

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9957.2010.02208.x

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We believe these are important inputs in the production of university degrees; Smith and Naylor () and Wossmann () have used similar types of variables in analysing the determinants of undergraduate performance in the United Kingdom (Smith and Naylor) and international student performance in science and mathematics (Wossmann) . Similarly, De Paola and Scoppa () show for an Italian public university that larger class sizes have a negative effect on student performance. Our focus is therefore on university characteristics as inputs rather than student characteristics, although some recent evidence (Nicoletti and Rabe, ) has shown that family characteristics play an important role in school outcomes…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 80%

Grades across Universities over Time

Johnes

Soo

2015

The Manchester School

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines the determinants of degree outcomes in a sample of UK universities from 2004 to 2012. We use stochastic frontier methods to account for differences in efficiency across universities and over time. The quality of the student intake and the university's research performance are the main determinants of degree outcomes. There is no evidence of grade inflation at the boundary between upper and lower second-class honours. Decomposing the determinants of degree outcomes, we find that good entry grades yield a higher return in traditional universities than in new universities. Although high-quality universities award more good degrees, we find little evidence that universities of different quality differ in their propensity to inflate grades over time.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 80%

Grades across Universities over Time

Johnes

Soo

2015

The Manchester School

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A recent study by Bandiera, Larcinese and Rasul (2008), using data from a leading UK university, show a negative and significant effect of class size for the smallest and largest ranges of class size, while the effect for intermediate class sizes (from 33 to 104 students) is not significantly different from zero. De Paola and Scoppa (2009) provide evidence of class size effects among Italian college students exploiting the exogenous variations in class size determined by a maximum class size rule introduced by the 2001 Italian university reform. From their analysis it emerges that large teaching classes produce negative effects on student performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Class size effects on student achievement: heterogeneity across abilities and fields

Paola

Ponzo

Scoppa

2013

Education Economics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, we analyze class size effects on college students exploiting data from a project offering special remedial courses in mathematics and language skills to freshmen enrolled at an Italian medium‐sized public university. To estimate the effects of class size, we exploit the fact that students and teachers are virtually randomly assigned to teaching classes of different sizes. From our analysis, it emerges that controlling for a number of individual characteristics, larger classes determine a significant and sizeable negative effect on student performance in mathematics. Importantly, this negative effect is significantly larger for low‐ability students and negligible for high‐ability ones. On the other hand, class size effects do not appear to be relevant for student achievement in language skills

show abstract

“…Other instruments were based on students' attitudes and family background; for example, religious attitudes and parental use of alcohol were used as instruments for binge drinking (Wolaver, 2007). Another set of instruments capitalized on variation in exposure to peer influence, such as through membership in classes or study groups (Paloyo et al, 2016;de Paola & Scoppa, 2011) or through the presence of dormitory roommates (Insler & Karam, 2019;Stinebrickner & Stinebrickner, 2007).…”

Section: Student Achievementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Use of Instrumental Variables in Higher Education Research

Orosz

Proteasa

Crăciun³

2020

Theory and Method in Higher Education Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Higher education researchers are often challenged by the difficulty of empirically validating causal links posited by theories or inferred from correlational observations. The instrumental variable (IV) estimation strategy is one approach that researchers can use to estimate the causal impact of various higher education-related interventions. In this chapter, we discuss how the body of quantitative research specifically devoted to higher education has made use of the IV estimation strategy: we describe how this estimation strategy was used to address causality concerns and provide examples of the types of IVs that were used in various subfields of higher education research. Our discussion is based on a systematic review of a corpus of econometric studies on higher education-related issues that spans the last 30 years. The chapter concludes with a critical discussion of the use of IVs in quantitative higher education research and a discussion of good practices when using an IV estimation strategy.

show abstract

The Effects of Class Size on the Achievement of College Students*

Cited by 10 publications

References 29 publications

Grades across Universities over Time

Grades across Universities over Time

Class size effects on student achievement: heterogeneity across abilities and fields

The Use of Instrumental Variables in Higher Education Research

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About