Class size and teacher effects in higher education

Abstract

Using student evaluations of their instructor as an outcome measure, we estimate and compare class size and teacher effects for higher education, with an emphasis on determining whether a comprehensive class size reduction policy that draws on the hiring of new teachers is likely to improve educational outcomes. We find that first time teachers perform significantly worse than their peers, and we find substantial class size effects. Hence higher education institutions face a tradeoff if they wish to increase admission. This tradeoff implies that as class size increases, at first the negative class size effect is smaller than that of introducing a first time teacher. However, beyond a certain level, the class size effect dominates and it is better to create a new class with a first time teacher.11We would like to thank Matías Covarrubias and Fernanda Rojas for excellent research assistance. We would also like to thank comments received in the internal workshop of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile’s Economics Department and in the 2011 Yearly Congress of the Economics Society of Chile. We also thank two anonymous referees whose advice greatly improved the paper. The usual disclaimer applies.