Impact of the size of the class on pupils’ psychosocial well-being

Most research on class size effect focuses on pupils’ school achievement but few on pupils’ psychosocial well-being. On the other hand an increasing number of studies have showed that there is a link between pupils’ psychosocial well-being and their school achievement. 97 Danish typically developing 3rd grade pupils were tested. They were divided into 3 class size groups: Small (10 pupils), Medium (20 pupils), and Large (25 pupils). The average age (10 years) and the proportion of boys and girls (50%) and SES (medium) were similar in the 3 class size groups. Pupils’ psychosocial well-being was assessed with the Beck Youth Inventories of Emotional and Social Impairment, the Test of Emotion Comprehension, the Me and the School questionnaire, and The Pupil’s Self-report. Preliminary analyses showed that increasing class size had a significant increasing impact on pupils’ disruptive behaviours and there was a significant link between lack of understanding of mixed emotions and lower level of self-concept and higher level of anger. These results of this research may contribute to a better understanding of the impact of the class size on pupils’ school achievement via the identification of risk factors such as pupils’ psychosocial well-being.