RT Journal Article
T1 Effect of class size on student achievement in the COVID-19 "new normal"
A1 Carro, Jesús M.
A1 Gallardo Sanchez, Pedro
AB The COVID-19 pandemic implied measures, such as school closures at the outbreak of the pandemic, negatively affected children's human capital. However, in some places, the situation later resulted in a reduction in class sizes in order to avoid the spread of SARS-Cov-2 in schools. We take advantage of this unexpected event to evaluate the effect on school performance of a significant class size reduction implemented in Spain, when schools were reopened. We find a positive and significant effect of the class size reduction of 0.11 standard deviations on overall students' performance. Given the situation and nature of our data, we interpret our estimates as a lower bound for the true effect of the reduction in class size. We conclude that the reduction in class size served, on average, to at least compensate for the other negative effects on learning. Our findings also point out the importance of evaluating the quality of the new and inexperienced additional teachers that need to be hired when implementing a general reduction of class size.
PB Wiley
SN 0307-3378
YR 2023
FD 2023-10-14
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10016/39254
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10016/39254
LA eng
NO Comunidad de Madrid, Grant/AwardNumber: EPUC3M11 (V PRICIT); AgenciaEstatal de Investigación del Gobierno deEspaña, Grant/Award Number:RTI2018-095231-B-I00
DS e-Archivo
RD 17 jul. 2024