Effects Of Class Composition Research Articles

The effect of class composition on cross-curricular competences – Students with special educational needs in regular classes in lower secondary education

This study investigates how the proportion of SEN students in regular classes is related to the student-level and class-level cross-curricular competences. The data (N = 5368) come from a large-scale, longitudinal assessment study conducted on students at the beginning and end of lower secondary education in a Finnish metropolitan area. The results of the multilevel regression models showed that students in regular classes with SEN students performed on average lower than students in classes without SEN students, and that the proportion of students with SEN in class weakly predicted negatively the ninth-grade test scores. Furthermore, SEN students seemed to perform at the same level regardless of the proportion of other SEN students in class. However, students without SEN in classes with SEN students performed slightly lower than their peers in classes without SEN students in the ninth-grade assessment even when the initial differences related to placement were taken into account.

Targeted versus mixed preschools and kindergartens: effects of class composition and teacher-managed activities on disadvantaged children's emergent academic skills

In this study, longitudinal cohort-sequential latent growth modeling was used to determine the effects of (a) socioeconomically mixed preschool and kindergarten classrooms, (b) the implementation of an education program aiming to accelerate socioeconomically disadvantaged children's emergent academic skills, and (c) the amount of teacher-managed academic activities on 3- to 6-year-old disadvantaged children's emergent literacy and math skills (n = 91). The results indicate that disadvantaged children in mixed preschool and kindergarten classrooms gained more in literacy and math than disadvantaged children in targeted classrooms. The results also indicate that the use of a special education program to promote disadvantaged children's emergent literacy and math was not effective, probably because of a lack of implementation fidelity. However, the extent to which teachers engaged in the kind of activities that were intended by the education program, in particular frequent initiation and guidance of language, literacy, and math activities, was significantly related to disadvantaged children's outcomes.

Class composition influences on pupils' cognitive development1

The proportion of low-achieving children in a class can affect the progress of individual pupils in that class. Having a large proportion of low achievers in a class could slow down growth in cognitive achievement but, might also boost such growth, due to the effects of specialist teaching geared to low achievers' needs. In a longitudinal study of 8,684 pupils aged 9 – 12, cognitive and social-emotional development were analysed. In classes with a comparatively large number of pupils with migrant parents, the increase in pupils' mathematics achievement was smaller. In classes with a comparatively large number of pupils with parents with a low level of education, the increase in pupils' achievement in Dutch language proficiency was smaller. No relationship was found between class composition and either well-being at school or academic self-concept. The effects of class composition appeared to be differential for different groups of pupils.