Causal Effects of Small Class on Students’ Social-Emotional and Behavior Outcomes

• In Event: Reimagining School Effectiveness: Theories, Evidence, and Emerging Paradigms

Abstract

Little is known about small-class effects on students’ non-achievement outcomes. To fill this gap, this study examines the effects of small class size on four social emotional and behavior outcomes, including self-control, interpersonal skills, externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors in grades K-2. Propensity score methods, that effectively control for differences between students in small versus non-small classes on important covariates, are employed. We conduct grade-by-grade analyses on the national representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011). Results show that, overall, the effects of small classes were not significant. However, in second grade, small classes were associated with lower level of self-control, suggesting that students in larger classes may demonstrate better self-control in this grade.

Authors

• Ting Shen, Missouri University of Science & Technology

• Spyros Konstantopoulos, Michigan State University