I wish those who summarize research could come to common conclusions. If there are rules for identifying and integrating quality studies, meta-analyses should come to similar conclusions. Somehow, this does not seem to be the case. My work did summarize research as a way to situate my own, but I do not have the background to evaluate formal approaches to research integration. I just wish they could decide if eggs are good for you or not. How about red wine and beer – another important issue?
Anyway, this problem seems to apply to important educational issues as well. Is homework helpful or harmful? How about project based learning?
Class size is one of those issues that seems to be another example of this type of controversy. It is important because while the public does not want to short change students if size does not matter the public also does not want to tax themselves unnecessarily. It just seems reasonable to most that smaller classes would give teachers the opportunity to spend more time with individual students. This is why I was always puzzled by conclusions that within a substantial range class size did not seems to matter. It would seem to follow that either the assumption of the value of personal attention was not valid or that educators did not take advantage of the opportunity to provide such personal attention.
Now, there seems to be a new research summary that promotes the value of smaller sized classes. I hope this research makes it to a prominent journal so that reviewers can evaluate the research, because I do not really trust research that is promoted without review.
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