The Relationship between Class Size and Student's Academic Achievement in Fifth Grade

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Abstract

Class size is one of the issues which have always been discussed among the teachers and experts in educational institutions. The above relationship is an important factor by which the reasonable number of students in classes, as well as the necessary facilities and teachers to fulfill the objectives can be determined. With regard to the importance of the issue, this paper has examined the stated relationship.
To do so, 72 classes of the fifth grade including students and their teachers (N=2188) were randomly selected from the three districts with high, medium, and low population density. Correlation and Ex Post Facto designs were applied. Questionnaires and academic achievement inventories were the instruments of the study. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis were applied through SPSS.
Findings showed that there is no significant relationship between the mean of the total of the three main courses, mean of science and mathematics with the number of students. However, ANOVA showed that with increasing the number of students in literature courses, the student's performance increased.

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