os. The first major problem was cost. Reducing student-teacher ratios required more classrooms and more teachers. To justify the expense of such a policy, it was necessary to have evidence of the validity of the concept in practice. The findings of research studies investigating the impact of class size on educational performance tended to be mixed. While most studies found some benefits from smaller class sizes, there were important exceptions (Heise, 2002).
Further, even among the studies that found beneficial effects of smaller class sizes, other issues arose. First, the study results varied in relation to how low the student-teacher ratio must be to produce significant improvements in educational performance. Second, the study results varied in relation to what areas of study (e.g., mathematics, language, and so forth) were most susceptible to improved performance through lower student-teacher ratios. Third, the study results varied in relation to grade levels where lower student-teac
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