Influence of Class Size

Mustafa Muneer – 11748
Undergraduate Student, American University of Afghanistan
Academic Writing II – Section 009
Prof. Christopher Henderson
24th July 2012
Influence of Class size on Academic achievement
Education has a significant role in part of development of a country. If a country is developed from military, cultural, political and other parts, so it is because of high level of education on that country. Countries that have low and weak level of education they still live in traditional societies. For instance, Afghanistan currently doesn’t have a good education. In every country there are different education systems and every country work with a given educational policy to develop its education system in the world, though every system doesn’t work in all countries. There are many policies for academic achievement. Some analysts believe that class size can also be considered as an effective element in academic achievement. Some analyst has the idea of small classes that can be more effective for academic achievement. In addition, to the idea of class size influence on academic achievement there can some other elements that could have influence on academic achievement. For example, people live in different cultures and obviously all people are not same they have different talents.
In some countries smaller classes can bring good results and could be counted an effective factor on academic achievement. In a small class most students can have participation and feel free to express their ideas and share their questions without any hesitancy to teacher. In addition, in small classes teachers also can give participation to all students. Also in small class teacher can have better control than a large class having many students. Not many students in a classroom avoid clamor and disturbances, that the teacher can make good use of the time and make student to have active participation in the class, for example making some group studies on a specified topic or project. Moreover, smaller classes pave the way for teacher to have attention on all students in the class and have some discussion or arguments inside the class (Ehrenberg.et.al, 158). Giving presentations and speech for few minutes in a class can be effective and beneficial for a student that this can be more likely possible in small classes for students to work individually on a small project and present it in the class. Also studying in a small class makes it possible to divide students into small groups to have some group discussions and debates inside class that give more courage to a student to express their ideas inside the class and also outside class.
There are different cultures, customs, talents and life styles that people have in the world. Difference in culture, custom, talent, way of living, family and many other things can be counted as an effective factor on a student’s academic achievement than effect of class size on academic achievement. In many countries of the world there are large classes with many students. These students in large classes may have good academic achievement than the students in other countries that study in small classes and the reason cannot be the class size it can be other reasons, for example the difference between the length of academic years in the countries. “Japanese teachers and students also spend much more time together—the usual year is 40 days longer than in the United States—and more time bonding with one another at school festivals and on field trips and hikes” (Lewis, 161). Or also it can have some other reasons, like family help to a student it may have impact on a student’s academic achievement and help the student to do a good job and have good results. “Asian parents are far less likely than Americans to be divorced and are more likely to be involved in their children’s education” (Zorpette, 161). There are many factors on academic achievement and all the countries in the world do not use the same policy or system for having better education system. Europe has its own policy to have the best education system and Asia has different policy and system to have high education level. With many factors that have influence on academic achievement, one of them that can have effect on academic achievement can be effect of class size. Some analysts believe that small classes can have better influence on academic achievement. But, some other analysts believe that large classes can be more effective on academic achievement. Both, ideas are respected, because one policy or analyze can work for a country, but not for another country because the conditions differ. In every country there are different people, different ideas, different talents, and many other situations that differ from each other. So, class size can be counted as a factor of influence on academic achievement.

Works Cited
Ehrenberg.et.al. 2001, “The influence of class size on academic achievement”, Scientific American, 2001
Zorpette, G. 2001, “The Asian Paradox, Scientific American”, Scientific American, 2001

Cited: Ehrenberg.et.al. 2001, “The influence of class size on academic achievement”, Scientific American, 2001 Zorpette, G. 2001, “The Asian Paradox, Scientific American”, Scientific American, 2001