Study on Small Class
Teaching in Primary
Schools in Hong Kong

Final Report
December 2009

EDUCATION BUREAU
Maurice Galton and Tony Pell

List of Contents
SECTION

PAGE

Executive Summary

i-xi

Introduction

1

Background to the Study

2

Research measures used in the Study

7

The Consultant’s visits to the schools

9

Teacher professional development

11

The replication of teachers’ views on small classes

12

Further consideration of the observation data

18

Impact of small classes on the Territory-wide System
Assessment (TSA)

26

Factors contributing to school success

30

Relative performance of schools with high proportionsof disadvantaged pupils

35

Performance in small classes compared to Reference
Schools

41

Reviewing the results of the SCT Study (2004-08)

52

Some general conclusions

60

Recommendations

64

References

70

Appendixes

74

Executive Summary
I. The final year of the small class teaching study (SCT) has seen the completionof the fieldwork. During the year the P3 small classes from Cohort 1 (the2004/05 P1 small class sample) returned to normal size classes in P4 andCohort 2, having been in small P1 classes during 2005/06 and P2 small classes
in 2006/07 returned to P3 normal size classes. A third cohort, who had started
in P1 normal size classes in 2006/07 moved on to ‘normal’ classes in P2. It has
thus been possible to compare small classes with normal size ones in the sameschools over the first three years of the pupils’ primary schooling and to
replicate these comparisons in P1 and P2.
II. The study sought to address two broad research questions: What are the benefits of SCT in the local context?
 What teaching strategies, professional support and resources arenecessary in order to maximise the benefits of SCT in Hong Kong
primary schools?
III. A matched sample of 15 schools (known as the reference schools) was added tothe study in 2006/07. P1, P2 and P3 classes in these schools during 2006/07
moved up in 2007/08 to P2, P3 and P4 respectively, thus affording a further setof comparisons. Attainment tests of Chinese, English and mathematics andstudent questionnaires were administered. The Teacher Questionnaire, whichsolicited practitioners’ views on the merits of SCT during the second year of thestudy (2005/06), was repeated. In addition, an analysis of the Territory-wide
System Assessment (TSA) scores was undertaken using the 2004 results todraw a matched sample of 37 schools to compare with the ‘experimental’
schools taking part in the SCT study. Comparisons were then made using the2005, 2006 and 2007 results.
IV. In most years some 700 classes have been tested. This has resulted inapproximately 20,000 pupils taking the end of P1 tests in each of the subjects,
all of whom were followed for a second year. Nearly 23,500 took the end of the
P2 tests in each subject, the majority having entered the study at the beginningof P1. The figure for the number of pupils taking the end of P3 test was
20,500 while just over 11,000 of these pupils continued to the end of P4. Of thetotal sample who started in P1 classes approximately 53.9% started in smallclasses, 27.2% came from the control classes in the same schools with theremaining 18.9% being drawn from the reference schools.
V. The consultant completed his visits to the participating schools and made athird visits to the 8 case study schools (the repeat sample). There continued tobe considerable variation in the quality of instruction between schools andbetween teachers. About 25% of observed lessons showed real improvement.
The main weakness in the others concerned the inappropriate use of group work.
In too many group activities only one pupil at a time was actively engaged
while other members watched. This sometimes led to poor behaviour because
pupils became distracted.
iVI. The Teachers Questionnaire was again administered during 2007/08. If
anything, opinions on the perceived benefits of SCT were stronger than on theearlier occasion when the survey was distributed. It was thought impossible togive individuals extra help, cater for slow and gifted learners, match tasks toindividual needs, mark pupils’ work during lessons and make use of across-theage-group peer tutoring in normal classes. Holding extended class discussions,differentiating work by task and doing group work was thought to be difficult
but possible when the number of pupils in the class was greater than 25, whilesetting practical tasks, giving oral feedback, doing pair work, involving pupils
in assessing their work and using same-age-group peer tutoring was deemed
equally feasible in both small and normal classes. These responses suggest
many teachers now accept the project’s stance that most of the common
teaching approaches can be used in both small and normal classes, althoughwith more difficulty in the latter situation. As such it marks a change in opinion
from the beginning of the study when teachers demanded that they should be
informed about ‘SCT methods.’
VII. Teachers were also asked to what help they received in implementing SCT andwhich of these supports they most valued. Generally, as in the earlier survey,
teachers most valued practical help with technology and from outside experts
such as educational psychologists and social workers. Next important was the
support of the Principal and the curriculum leader. Sharing good practice withcolleagues was less valued because any useful knowledge gained could not be
put to immediate good use on account of existing workloads.
VIII. Teachers ranked catering for diversity as of greatest concern. Providing extra
tuition outside normal lessons and the use of same-age-group peer tutoring
continues to be strongly favoured strategies for coping with this problem, butmore use is now being made of setting differentiated tasks. As a result grouping
practices have become more flexible with pupils placed in either mixed orability groups according to the task demand.
IX. A cluster analysis of the teacher observation data yielded four distinct teachingapproaches. The first of these, named sustained individual and pair enquiry
consisted of teachers who asked the highest number of open, challenging
questions made more statements of ideas and offered greater amounts of
informing feedback. Their interactions with pupils took place either
individually or in pairs and were more often sustained into the next 30 second
time unit. The second approach, labeled group task monitoring, consisted ofteachers who spent much time listening or watching pupils. These teachers
issued the highest number of task directions which often involved setting up
and organizing work in groups. The third approach, that of whole class
instruction, represented a more traditional form of teaching, and consisted ofteachers who spent nearly two thirds of the time talking to the whole classwithout any particular child in focus. A large proportion of this time was spent
making statements of fact, giving directions and listening to pupils read in
unison. The final approach also employed a high proportion of whole classteaching but the focus was on questioning of all kinds rather than statements.
Teachers in this cluster were labeled whole class questioners.

ii

X. Across the three subjects the use of the different approaches tended to be more
evenly distributed in small classes suggesting that many teachers were still
experimenting with ways of maximizing the advantages of having to cope withfewer pupils. Normal classes were dominated by whole class instruction.
English, teachers too favoured this more traditional approach in small classes,
while for mathematics in small classes pair work predominated. As pupils
moved from P2 to P3 more group work was attempted. When classes wereranked in order of attainment and attitudes at P1 and P2 few difference emerged
between the four teaching approaches. In P1 sustained individual and pairenquiry improved learning disposition in Chinese while in mathematics wholeclass questioning had a similar effect. In P2 pupils taught by whole classquestioners in English made most progress. A similar breakdown could not be
accomplished with P3 since only Cohort 1 classes were small ones and numbers
did not allow an extended analysis of this kind. When the data was aggregatedacross the three subjects no differences in attainment were found but in P2
classes the use of whole class instruction produced the lowest levels of learning
disposition while whole class questioning produced the highest.
XI. A similar analysis was carried out on the pupil observation data. Again 4 typesof pupil were identified bearing close similarity to the patterns of behaviour
exhibited by pupils in earlier studies of primary classrooms in England. Type 1
pupils were labeled solitary workers. They were on task for almost 95% of thelesson but rarely interacted either with the teacher or their peers. Type 2 wereintermittent workers. These pupils also mainly worked on their own but tended
to become distracted when the teacher was engaged elsewhere in the classroom.
Type 3 were also very industrious workers but were more often part of a groupand so were labeled active collaborators. These pupils also concentrated on thetask for 90% of the lesson. The final group of pupils with the lowest levels of
on-task behaviour were called attention grabbers. They either sought or
received more of the teachers’ undivided attention than any other pupil in theclass, were more often moving around the classroom and received more praise
than other pupils.
XII. When the distribution of pupil types was examined there were few differences
between the size of the class or the year. Small classes and P3 classes had more
active collaborators. P3 classes also had fewer attention grabbers. No
differences emerged in attainment, attitudes or subjects. When the relationshipbetween teaching approach and pupil types was examined whole class
instructors had a significant higher proportion of solitary workers. These pupils
while on-task were mostly listening to the teacher talking. The lack of any
overall significant relationship between teaching and the patterns of pupil
behaviour suggests that the latter may be a function of personality andtemperament so that some attention grabbers may be shy, anxious introverts
who seek constant reassurance from the teacher.
XIII. The impact of being in small classes on the TSA was also investigated. The
2004 results were used to select 37 other schools which were paired with thosein the SCT study while also taking account of the social and economic
characteristics of the school’s intake. Comparisons were then made between
this matched sample, the experimental schools and the reference group. In theiii

three samples the proportion of pupils achieving basic competence in 2005 was
below the average for all Hong Kong schools in all three subjects in P3. By
2006 this situation had been remedied except for English where only thereference schools achieved comparable results with the territory-wide average.
In 2007, the first year when the pupils in the experimental schools were in small
P3 classes, there was little change compared to 2006 in any subject. Using the2005 results to predict the 2007 competencies gave only one (mathematics)
non-significant positive residual gain in favour of the experimental schools.
XIV. When the scores on the various sub-tests were analysed, no significant
differences in favour of the experimental schools occurred in English ormathematics. In 2007 the experimental schools scored significantly below boththe matched sample and the reference schools at individual listening in Chinese
but did better on the second audio-visual information test. For these sub-tests a‘light sampling’ procedure was adopted and this adds to the uncertainties ininterpreting results. It would seem that main reason for improved scores was theteachers’ greater familiarity with the structure of the assessment since thegreatest gains were made in 2006, the third year of the TSA operation.
XV. Some of the factors contributing to school success were examined bycomparing the characteristics of the six most successful experimental schools(in terms of combined attitude and attainment profiles) with the four least
successful. In the most successful schools Principals were more experienced,
held firmer beliefs in the value of SCT for improving pupil attainment and took
a more active role in curriculum and teacher learning development. They also
placed greater emphasis on parental support and participation which wassignificantly higher in the more successful schools. There was a tendency forthe more successful schools to have a greater proportion of individual and pairsustained enquirers and the less successful ones to have more group task
monitors although these differences did not quite reach a statistically significant
level.
XVI. The performance of the 5 schools in the experimental sample with relatively
high proportions of disadvantaged pupils was examined. There was little
difference in the attitudes and motivation of pupils irrespective of whether they
were in schools with a high population of disadvantaged pupils or attended
schools with a standard mix of pupils. In the first Cohort pupils from thedisadvantaged schools held their own in both Chinese and mathematics
attainment during the P1 and P2 years but lost ground in P3. In Cohort 2 pupils
from the disadvantage schools did slightly better in both these two subjects in
P1 and maintained this advantage in Chinese while achieving parity inmathematics during the P2 year. In P3 when Cohort 2 pupils moved back tonormal classes those from disadvantaged backgrounds lost ground. Most of thedeterioration in performance was due to girls. In English, where the pupils fromdisadvantaged backgrounds start from a low base, the position worsened year
by year. The conclusion reached is that providing pupils from disadvantaged
backgrounds are not too far behind on entry to primary school being in a smallclass is a positive advantage such that they maintain parity with pupils inschools with standard populations during the P1 year, although the magnitudeof this effect decreases as pupils move up the school.

iv

XVII. Further evidence in support of this conclusion comes when the progress of
pupils in normal classes in the disadvantaged schools is compared with normalclasses in the rest of the control schools. In both Chinese and mathematics
pupils from the schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged pupils did
worse in both P1 and P2 compared to the schools with a standard mix of pupils.
In P3, however, the pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds caught up whichreversed the trend in the small class sample. In English scores continued todeteriorate year by year. Being in a normal class and attending a school with ahigh proportion of disadvantaged pupils had little effect on either motivation or
attitudes when compared to normal classes in the remaining experimental
schools.
XVIII. A series of comparisons was carried out between classes from the referencegroup of schools and those in the SCT study. For attitudes and motivation there
was little difference between the various samples in P1 and P2. English is
disliked most, mathematics least. In every case attitudes decline year by year.
The boys’ decline is sharpest in languages, the girls in mathematics. In themove to P3 the pattern is similar but in mathematics, boys’ attitudes in Cohort 1,
which remained in small classes, showed the least decline. However this ground
was lost on returning to normal classes in P4.
XIX. Comparing the attainment of pupils as they move through the P1 and P2 years
produced similar patterns in both the reference and experimental schools. Any
differences were mainly due to the differences at the start of P1 rather thanbeing in a small class. In both school samples and in both languages boys makeless progress relative to girls but in mathematics, although both girls and boys
had approximately equal scores at the start of P1, they showed greater
improvement by the end of P2. The superiority of the reference group at thestart of primary school was mainly due to the lower percentage of pupils bornin Mainland China. This has consequences in terms of parental support.
XX. In examining the changes from the beginning of P2 to the end of P3 thereference schools enjoyed an initial advantage because the pre-test was taken in
September and not June. The reference group then maintained this advantage
on the tests at the end of P2. The gender pattern in both experimental schools
and reference schools was similar to that in P1 where girls outperformed boys
in languages but boys were ahead in mathematics by the end of P3. When
Cohorts 1 and 2 were compared the latter has an advantage in P2 andmaintained this in P3 although the pupils had returned to normal classes. The
final comparison compared Cohort 1’s move through P3 to the end of P4. The
gender patterns partially replicated the earlier analyses with girls doing better inlanguages but girls maintaining parity with boys in mathematics. In Chinese,
Cohort 1 pupils closed the gap on the reference schools (both genders) by theend of P3 but fell behind again at the end of P4 when they returned to normalclasses. In English pupils in Cohort 1 were behind in every test but inmathematics they caught up the reference group at the end of P3 only to fallbehind again at the end of P4. The inference from these results is that theattainment of pupils at the beginning of each school year was the prime
determinant of pupils’ progress as they move from P1 to P4. In so far that
there are fluctuations in the relative progress in Cohorts 1 and 2, compared tovthe reference schools, these are likely to be random and mainly due to theexpertise of teachers taking a particular class in any given year.
XXI. This assertion was confirmed by a series of regression analyses in which thestart of P1, P2, and P3 scores were used to predict the end of P2, P3 and P4
scores. The start of P1 score predicted 42.4% of the explained variance up to
the end of P2, the start of P2 explained 64.3% up to the end of P3, the start ofP3 accounted for 75% up to the end of P4 while the end of P3 scores accounted
for 79% of the explained variation. In none of these analyses did being amember of a small class result in a statistically significant regression coefficient.
As pupils move from year to year other factors such as place of birth andparental support assume less significance. The contribution to a pupil’s
predicted score resulting in attendance at a particular school also decreased, forwhen a multilevel regression analysis was performed, with pupil variables andschool as the two levels, schools accounted for some 8% of the variance by theend of P2 and P3 but only 4% by the end of P4. Moving from a small to anormal class in the P4 year causes the aggregated scores of pupils to fall by
1.9%.
XXII. The final analysis compared the 23 data sets collected for each subject over the
lifetime of the project. Pupils in Cohort 2 who made more progress during theP1 year than the pupils in normal classes in Cohort 3 regress in P2 and do lesswell than either these control classes or the pupils in the reference schools. In
P3, however, the year of the TSA examination and the year Cohort 2 pupils
return to normal classes these pupils, who have experienced small classes for
two years, regain lost ground. Cohort 1 pupils outperform pupils in the control
classes in P3 but not in P1 or P2 and the return to large classes in the P4 year
results in a dip in performance in comparison with both the control andreference school samples.
XXIII. Regression analysis confirmed these trends. The strongest predictor of the endof P2 attainment was the end of P1 score accounting for 67.4% of the explained
variation. The start of P1 score contributed a further 3.7%. Using the end of P2
score to predict the P4 score accounts for 70.9% and using the end of P3 scorejust over 80%. When attainment is omitted from the analysis then only 14.2%of the variance is explained and being in a small class does not contribute tothis percentage. Using the multilevel regression model some 5% of thepredicted end of P4 performance can be attributed to school differences. Such
differences can be attributed in various degrees to factors such as the
Principal’s active leadership, the proportion of staff with qualifications in thesubject they are teaching, levels of parental support and the socio-economic
characteristics of the surrounding neighbourhood from which a school draws its
pupils.
XXIV. To see if the advantages of attending a particular school were greater in smallclasses compared to the controls the analysis was conducted separately for eachcondition. The P3 score accounted for 81.8% of the explained variance in thepredicted P4 scores in the small classes and 77.9% in the controls. Girlsobtained a bigger advantage in small classes and the active leadership of the
Principal also made a significant contribution. Examining the school
contribution, the same schools rarely contribute to both the small and thevicontrol class analysis. One school made a positive contribution in small classes
but a negative one in the controls. These results support the view that a major
determinant of pupil progress is the expertise of the teacher who takes aparticular class at a particular point in time. When all measures of attainment
are excluded from the regression analysis 14.2% of the variation in thepredicted P4 scores is explained in the control classes and about 8% can be
attributed to school differences of the kind set out in the previous paragraph.
The corresponding figure for small classes is 27.1%. Thus while there isvariation between schools in their effective use of SCT there is an even larger
variation within schools. The most likely explanation of these within school
differences is the individual teacher’s classroom expertise.
XXV. The above results allow a number of research questions which were posed at
the start of the study to receive qualified answers. In all of the analyses
undertaken, effect sizes were always small to very small. The central researchquestion asked whether pupils in small classes make better progress than thosein normal ones. The answer was a partial yes, in that pupils in Cohort 2
outperformed Cohort 3 in the P1 year. However this advantage was lost in P2
although these pupils regained lost ground during the P3 year by which timethey had returned to normal classes. Being in Cohort 1 had no positive effect ineither P1 or P2 but these pupils did better in P3 although this advantage waslost when they returned to normal classes in P4. In none of the comparisons did
being in a small class bring about improvements in motivation, self esteem andattitudes towards Chinese, English or mathematics. The results are therefore
inconclusive and in line with previous studies where class numbers are in the
mid twenties.
XXVI. In so far there were gains in any year these seem to fluctuate randomly between
the experimental classes, the controls and the reference group. This suggeststhat a major determinant of pupils’ progress is the expertise of the particularteacher who takes the class in any one year. This view is supported by the
regression analyses which show that the end of year score in the previous year
increasingly accounted for most of the predicted variance as pupils moved from
P1 to P4. Another factor was the TSA test which pupils took in P3. In this year,
pupils in both Cohort 1 and 2 made up previously lost ground on the referenceclasses although those in Cohort 2 were no longer in small classes. The
inference here is that there is a certain amount of ‘teaching to the test’ whichmakes the P3 year results difficult to interpret.
XXVII. The second research question asked whether it is important to have a smallclass only in P1 or whether the effect of being in a small class for more than ayear was additive. Being in a small class in P1 was a clear advantage for Cohort
2 but not Cohort 1, probably because teachers in the first year of the study wereadapting to the new conditions. The answer to the second question appears to
be a negative one since Cohort 2 did not maintain their advantage in terms ofattainment when pupils moved to P2 and although Cohort 1 made attainment
gains during the P3 year this is probably had more to do with preparation for
the TSA tests. The benefits of being in a small class prior to returning to anormal one were not conclusive. Cohort 1 showed no benefit when moving toP4 but Cohort 2 improved on moving to P3. However, the effect of the TSA

vii

again probably influenced this result. There is no consistent evidence
therefore that being in the small class for three years was better than being in
one for two.
XXVIII. The third question concerned the relationship between teaching and outcomesin the small classes. This has become particularly relevant given the decision toextend SCT to all public sector primary schools at the start of the 2009/10
academic year. Although four distinct teaching approaches were identified none
appeared to offer an outright advantage in terms of attainment although there
was some indication that a mix of individual and pair work that encouraged
enquiry, combined with the use of whole class questioning improved pupils’orientation to learning. Working in groups resulted in considerable off task
behaviour which suggests that many teachers are still struggling to find ways of
implementing this strategy in a satisfactory manner. Normal classes more often
adopted a whole class approach where for over two-thirds of the lesson pupils
either watched or listened to the teacher. Teachers taking part in the SCT study
still appeared to be experimenting with different teaching approaches which, in
itself, may account for the limited and inconsistent results in small classes.
XXIX. The fourth question concerned the effect of small classes on pupils fromdisadvantaged backgrounds. Here, there was evidence to suggest that being in asmall class helps disadvantaged boys in particular to catch up in Chinese andmaintain parity up to the end of P2. In mathematics the boys graduallyoutperform the girls and also maintain parity with the rest of the sample until
the end of P2 but as with Chinese, any benefit gained from being in a smallclass is gradually eroded during subsequent P3 year. In a reverse of the general
pattern it is the boys rather than the girls who benefit most from reductions inclass size. However a condition of making progress is that the pupils must not
be too far behind on entry to primary school. Thus in English, where the entry
scores of both boys and girls in the schools with a high concentration ofdisadvantaged pupils were considerably below those of the remaining
experimental sample, the gap widened year on year. When attitudes in the core
subjects (Chinese, English and mathematics) were examined, both girls andboys scores in the disadvantaged schools showed few differences compared tothose from the remaining schools in the experimental sample but girls’ attitudes
in all three subjects declined at a faster rate.
XXX. The final question investigated the impact of the various contextual variables
such as parental support and the leadership characteristics of the school
Principal on the performance of pupils in the small classes. Teachingapproaches did not appear to influence attainment except in mathematics where
there was a very small effect size in favour of sustained enquiry and where
pupils either interacted with the teacher individually or in pairs. Pupils who
were taught by teachers using this sustained enquiry approach or where wholeclass teaching emphasized questioning rather than instruction had marginallybetter attitudes but again the effect sizes were very small. The effect of thesecontextual variables diminished as pupils moved up the primary school. Thus
the advantage of attending a particular school was greatest in P1, as were thedegree of parental support and the active leadership of the Principal. Comparing
the most and least successful schools in the SCT study provided a furtherviiidistinguishing characteristic. Principals of successful schools supported theirteachers by providing non contact time for professional development. In noneof the various analyses did the teacher’s training, their experience, level ofqualification or their experience of teaching small classes make a significant
difference.
XXXI. As teachers’ involvement in the study increased over time different forms ofprofessional support were required. Initially teachers required mentoring to help
replicate the existing successful practice of other colleagues. Visits frommembers of the school support team acting in this capacity were therefore
helpful. At the next stage teachers became more interested in curriculum tasks
so that workshops by subject experts and visits to other schools to observe otherteachers’ classrooms were most valuable. At the point where teachers began totake ownership for changing their classroom practice, rather than seeking
prescriptions from outsiders, learning circles became the most important meansof professional development.
XXXII. Teachers were generally satisfied with the technical support they received.
Their greatest need was more non contact time to engage in professional
development activities and to make the necessary resources for group activities.
It was often the case that these resources could be obtained from thesurrounding environment rather than having to be manufactured. Thus inmathematics pupils could identify and measure various shapes within theclassroom rather than have the teacher produces several sets of cardboard
rectangles, circles and triangles. More successful schools found ways ofproviding additional non contact time for professional development.
XXXIII. In summary, although the results in terms of outcomes, both attitudes andattainment were not conclusive, there were many positive findings. First, andmost importantly, there was strong evidence from the cluster analysis thatteachers were beginning to experiment in the use of different teachingapproaches. While teachers in regular classes mostly used whole class
instruction, teachers in small classes were asking more challenging questions,making use of pair and group work and engaging individual pupils in moresustained interactions. This has come about because over the period of the study
teachers have taken ownership of these changes, having accepted that there isno specific repertoire of prescribed strategies that constitute ‘small classteaching’. Learning circles have played a key part in bringing about thistransformation.
XXXIV. Second, as a result of these improvements teachers in small classes have beenable to improve the performance of pupils more evenly across the whole ability
range whereas in regular classes improvements tend to be concentrated within
the more able group. Third, smaller classes appeared to have particular benefits
for children in schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged pupils during
the initial year of primary schooling. Fourth, teachers have felt more relaxedand enthusiastic when teaching a smaller class and fifth, SCT was shown to
work best when Principals took an active part in curriculum development and in
the teachers’ professional development. These results suggest that over time,extending SCT to all primary schools will result in substantial benefits
providing these encouraging features continue to be developed.
ix

XXXV. There are therefore a number of recommendations that follow on from thesefindings:
 Principals need to be encouraged to play a more active part in theimplementation of SCT so that they can frame the professional
development of their staff around the six principles which underpinned
the approach used in this study. Distributed leadership to school
curriculum leaders should not therefore be conceived simply as delegation
but as a collegial sharing of responsibilities.
 Both inter-school sharing across subjects and intra-school sharing aroundpedagogic issues should be encouraged using the ‘learning circles’
approach which has been employed successfully in the SCT study.
Learning circles are important because they focus at any one time on a
specific pedagogy, allow teachers to observe and evaluate each others
classroom practice and thereby enhance the participants’ sense of
professionality. This allows teachers to move from a position where theylooked to others to tell them what they should do to become an effective
small class practitioner to a point where they are prepared to takeresponsibility for developing appropriate pedagogies. Support for thisinitiative should be sought from appropriate members of staff in the
University Departments of Education and should be coordinated by a coreteam. The aim should be to promote teaching for understanding byincreased pupil talk and participation through extended whole classdiscussion, together with the increased use of pair and group work, thus
easing the transition from the current emphasis on whole class instruction
where pupils spend most of their time watching or listening to the teacher.
These initiatives should concentrate initially on improving the quality ofquestioning during whole class discussion and with the effective use ofpeer tutoring during pair work where more knowledgeable pupils are able
to help slower learners, thereby allowing teachers to provide moreindividual attention.
The more difficult task of implementing
collaborative group work should be left till there is evidence that the useof more effective whole class teaching strategies have begun to take root.
 In coping with diversity, particularly in schools with a high concentrationof disadvantaged pupils where teachers claim that there is a wide spreadof ability in many classes, Principals should ensure that those aspects ofclassroom organisation and pedagogy which international research has
shown can bring about significant improvement in pupils’ attainment are
in place. These include the development of flexible grouping strategies, sothat teachers can sometimes concentrate on slower learners while themore advanced work independently, the use of peer tutoring and thecreation of resources which relate as far as possible to the pupils’ daily
lives. The biggest improvement would come about, however, if teachers
could raise the expectations of these disadvantaged pupils and convince
them that it is often lack of effort rather than ability which stops themfrom making progress. Coping with diversity in schools with highconcentration of disadvantaged pupils is particularly important in theyears after P1 where the initial gains are eroded. The situation with regard
to English, particularly in these disadvantaged schools, needs to bexreviewed in order to overcome the deficit that many of these pupils bringwith them on entry and from which they never recover.
 Some thought should be given to timetabling. Lessons which encourage
greater pupil participation are difficult to manage in a 35 minute session.
Many schools have introduced at least one double session per week whileothers now work to a 45- or 60-minute timetable. If pupils are to be
encouraged to participate more actively and to be given more thinking
time during discussion then 35 minutes may be too short a time in which
to implement such practice effectively.
 Principals should be encouraged to allocate teachers to a limited numberof year groups so that they have opportunities to teach more than one
class in any particular year group. In the SCT study many practitioners
only taught a single small class in P1, P2 or P3. They therefore had noopportunity to revise a particular lesson until a year later so that progress
was often slow. If ideas from the learning circles are to develop at areasonable pace then teachers need opportunities to test them out in one
lesson, reflect on the outcomes and then make appropriate changes with aparallel class. Having a smaller range of year groups to teach would also
cut down on preparation and hence offer possibilities of reducing theexisting workload.
 University Departments of Education need to consider ways in which thefindings from this study could be used to reinforce existing and future
initial teacher education programmes on matters such as teaching forunderstanding, catering for diversity and helping pupils to develop as
independent thinkers. In this way these novice teachers, with the supportof their University tutors, can act as agents of change. At the level of
initial teacher education, courses should perhaps concentrate, initially, on
making students more effective ‘whole class’ practitioners leaving moresophisticated teaching approaches such as group work to a later stage of
their professional development.

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1.

Introduction

1.1

This final year of the Small Class Teaching (SCT) study has seen thecompletion of the fieldwork. As this therefore constitutes the final report in theseries, it may be helpful to readers if a brief outline of the main features of theresearch design together with a short summary of the findings of the previous
three interim reports is included. The latter summaries will be placed in theappropriate sections of this report. During the 2007/08 school year the P3
small classes from Cohort 1 (the 2004/05 P1 small class sample) in the 37
experimental schools returned to normal size classes in P4. It is now possible
to compare these classes with normal size classes from the same schools who
were in P4 during the previous year (2006/07). These latter pupils have been
followed since they were in P2 ‘normal’ classes at the start of the study.

1.2

Cohort 2, having been in small P1 classes during 2005/06 and P2 small classes
in 2006/07 returned to P3 normal size classes in the 2007/08 school year. In
addition, a third cohort, who had started in P1 normal size classes in 2006/07
moved on to ‘normal’ classes in P2. It has thus been possible to compare smallclasses with normal size ones in the same schools over the first three years of
the pupils primary schooling and to replicate these comparisons in P1 and P2
using the second cohort. It has also been possible to measure the effect of
three years’ experience of small classes on P4 comparisons (Cohort 1) and two
years’ experience of small classes on P3 comparisons (Cohort 2).

1.3

A further matched sample of 15 schools (known as the reference schools) was
added to the study in 2006/07. P1, P2 and P3 classes in these schools during
2006/07 moved up in the 2007/08 school year to P2, P3 and P4 respectively,
thus affording a further set of comparisons. The complete administrative plan
for affording the various comparisons outlined in the previous paragraphs isincluded at Appendix I. No further observations were carried out during thisfinal year of the study, but the Teacher Questionnaire, which solicitedpractitioners’ views on the merits of SCT during the second year of the study(2005/06), was repeated. In addition, an analysis of the Territory-wide System
Assessment (TSA) scores was undertaken using the 2004 results to draw amatched sample of 37 schools to compare with the ‘experimental’ schools
taking part in the SCT study. Comparisons were then made using the 2005,
2006 and 2007 results.

1.4

To summarise this report attempts to answer the following questions:
•
•

•
•

Do pupils in small classes make better progress in attainment andimproved attitudes and motivation compared to pupils in normal sizeclasses?
Is it more important to have a small class in P1? Are any attainment andattitude changes cumulative so that pupils with three years experience ofsmall classes do better than those with just two years? Are there any
effects of Cohort 1 pupils moving back to regular classes in P4?
Are any changes in attainment and attitudes associated with particularkinds of teacher and pupil behaviours?
Do small classes confer additional benefits on schools with an above
average number of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds?

1

What other possible factors such as parental support, school leadership,teachers’ background and opinions influence classroom behaviour andperformance in the ‘experimental’ schools participating in the SCT study?

2.

Background to the Study

2.1

The SCT study began at a point in time when there was considerable
controversy surrounding the issue of reducing class size. Demographic
changes in some areas of Hong Kong SAR led to a fall in the school
population with the possibility of teacher redundancies. There was suggestionthat rather than lose experienced teachers the opportunity should be taken to
reduce the number of pupils in ‘normal’ classes to further enhance the qualityof teaching and learning. In response to this appeal the then Education and
Manpower Bureau (EMB) commissioned a SCT study. The broad aims of thisprogramme of research were twofold; first to ascertain the benefits of SCT in
the local context and second, to determine what teaching strategies,
professional support and resources were necessary to maximise theeffectiveness of SCT in Hong Kong’s primary schools.

2.2

Not surprisingly, the decision to set up the SCT study was seen by some as adelaying tactic on the part of the EMB. The research of Blatchford et al (2002,
2003a) in England and that of the Tennessee ‘STAR’ (Student Teacher
Achievement Ratios) project (Finn& Achilles 1999) was frequently cited insupport of the claim that pupils did better in smaller classes. However, a more
complete reading of this and other research suggested that the above
conclusion was an over-simplification and that there were valid reasons why
further research in the local context was required. A review by Hattie (2005)
has summarised the results of some 164 studies and found that the average
effect size of small class was 0.12 which is relatively small and according toHattie represented about 9% improvement on the average pupil’s performancein a large class. In another American study, the Wisconsin Student
Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) the estimated effect size due tosmaller classes was 0.20 against an overall annual improvement of 1.20
(Molnar et al 1999).

2.3

Hattie goes on to discuss a number of critical comments concerning research
into class size. Hanushek (1999) for example, points out that there was ahigh attrition rate in the STAR classes so that less than 50% of the students
remained in the study by the time they entered the fourth year of schooling,although an analysis which controlled for this factor found it resulted inslightly bigger effect sizes (Nye et al 1999).

2.4

More relevant to the present study was the fact that in both the STAR andSAGE studies a small class consisted of 15 pupils, whereas in Hong Kong thenumbers range from 20 to 25. Blatchford et al (2002) found that significant
gains in test scores only occurred when the class size was less than 18
although they argue (Blatchford et al 2003) that classes of less than 25 pupils
can still be important, particularly for those pupils from poorer socio-2economic background who generally enter school with few academic
accomplishments and therefore need to catch up.
2.5

Most studies conclude that the benefits accruing from smaller classes follow
the ‘law of diminishing returns,’ in that the effects are greatest with theyoungest classes (Tomlinson 1990; Blatchford et al 2002). Nevertheless, Finn
et al (2005) claim there are lasting benefits resulting from early exposure tosmall classes including better behaviour, increased engagement and higher
levels of graduation once the pupils return to regular classes.

2.6

A further argument for setting up the SCT study arises from the fact that mostof the studies reviewed by Hattie (2005) took place in Western countries
where regular classes are in the range 25-30. Fuller (1987) found 9 studies
which had been conducted in developing countries where the typical regularclass consisted of 44 pupils and found no differences were attributable to classsize. More recently, an analysis of the TIMSS (Third International
Mathematics and Science Study) found only four out of 40 countries whereclass size made a difference (cited in Hattie 2005). These researchers conclude
that effective teachers in these developing countries have created a range ofteaching strategies that ensure learning takes place in larger classes and thatthese techniques may not be so appropriate when the numbers of pupils are
reduced somewhat.

2.7

Moreover, the general explanation for the gains in small classes in Westerncountries is that there is less disruption and more pupil engagement in learning.
Finn et al. (2003) argue that it is mainly the differences in engaged time thatdifferentiate between small and large classes. Averaging the results of various
studies there appears to be an improvement of around 13.9% in the ‘on-task’
behaviour of pupils in small classes compared to those in larger ones where
the average recorded was 56.6% (ibid: 327). In the UK levels of engaged time
typically range from the mid sixties to the low seventies as a percentage of allobservations. Clearly it would seem valid to suggest that if teachers spend
around a third of their time not teaching, and this figure is reduced by around
10% in smaller classes, then echoing Harnischfeger and Wiley’s (1976)
conclusion, time on task is likely to be a major determinant of pupils’
improving progress. In Hong Kong, however, three years of observation has
regularly recorded values of engaged time of around 90%, irrespective of
where the class is small or of regular size and this seems common to many
countries around the Pacific Rim. Moreover, as Bray (2000) has shown, many
children in these countries receive after-school coaching which adds toengagement and complicates the analysis further. If Hong Kong pupils can beshown to benefit academically from the experience of smaller classes it isunlikely therefore that Finn et al’s (2003) explanation of increased
engagement will suffix in the local context.

2.8

Hattie (2005) considers two further possible explanations of why small classes
might lead to improvements in academic performance (or rather why suchclasses don’t yield bigger effect sizes). The first of these examines the
proposition often put forward by practitioners that in smaller classes more
attention can be given to individual pupils. Few studies of class size have3

included systematic observation of pupils and teachers, a notable exception
being that of Blatchford et al (2005) who concluded that more one to one
teaching took place in smaller classes with more pupil-teacher initiations. On
the other hand Evertson and Folger (1989) found no statistically significant
differences between small and large classes in the STAR project althoughpupils in the smaller classes tended to initiate exchanges with the teacher more
often in seeking help. Other studies in Canada (Shapson et al. 1980) and inAustralia (Bourke 1986) have also found little differences in teachers’ andpupils’ behaviour patterns across small and regular size classes. These results
are not surprising when the mathematics of class size reduction on
individualisation is considered. Buckingham (2003) has pointed out from a
review of these observational studies that, typically, about 50% of each lesson
consists of teachers directly addressing the class. In a typical 40 minute lesson
in a class of 40 pupils then each individual would receive 30 seconds attention
if the remaining half of the lesson was individualised and the teacher
distributed her attention evenly around the class. Reducing the class to 25
pupils would increase the figure to 48 seconds. Thus under the most optimistic
set of criteria a pupil would receive one and a half minute’s additional
attention during the course of a school day.
2.9

This brings Hattie (2005) to the main reason why so many studies produce
such small differences when small classes are compared to regular size ones.
He points to the mass of evidence to suggest that despite a world wide reformmovement designed to change the way that ‘teachers teach,’ the dominant
pedagogy still consists of mainly of teacher talk (most of it to the whole class)interspersed with some rapid questioning which according to Edwards andMercer (1989) takes the form of ‘cued elicitations’ (where teachers offer
further help in their reply to a pupil’s initial response as a way of guaranteeing
a correct answer) followed by short bouts of group or pair work. Yair (2000)
estimates that despite various reforms, some well intentioned, about 80% of
American teachers continue with this didactic approach, 15% attempt tochange but fail, leaving only 5% who are able to innovate successfully. Thesefigures tend to support the historical analysis of teaching since the mid
nineteenth century by Cuban and Tyack (1995) which argues that teaching has
always been a conservative profession. What is true of teaching in general istherefore also likely to be true of the particular case of class size reduction.

2.10

However, the above conclusion does not necessarily vindicate the argumentsof those who suggest that the money spent on reducing the size of classes
could be spent to better advantage elsewhere in the educational system. An
international study of teachers’ work lives (Galton & MacBeath 2008) has
shown that most practitioners, worldwide, work long hours (including mostevenings and weekends) are under considerable personal stress and feel that
their family life has deteriorated over the past five years. Hong Kong teachers
typically work some 10 hours more per week than do their colleagues inWestern countries. Among the factors which could help alleviate this stressmost teachers cite a reduction in the size of classes for the obvious reason that
it would reduce marking and administration time, the main reason for having
to take work home in the evenings and at weekends. However, now thatbeginning with the 2009/10 school year class sizes will be reduced in most4

public sector primary schools (following the announcement by the Chief
Executive in October 2007) it is surely important that teachers give theresearch results serious consideration in looking for ways of maximising theadvantages of smaller classes.
2.11

Maximising the advantages of smaller classes so that effect sizes improvemust involve changes in the way that teachers teach. This is certainly thepremise that has guided the present SCT study. Faced with a lack of specificempirical evidence that distinguishes between less successful small classes
and more effective ones it has been necessary to turn to the more general
studies of classroom practice; to seek out those aspects of teaching that
correlate most positively with pupil attainment. Hattie (2005) takes a similarview and has conducted an analysis of some 500 meta-analyses involving a
total of around 300,000 individual research studies. Taking this analysis into
account, the SCT study has been guided in its approach by the following six
broad pedagogic principles aimed at developing pupils’ understanding:•

A clear statement of the learning objectives which are communicated topupils as an ‘advanced organiser’ at the beginning of the lesson andreviewed at the end to assess if students have mastered what has beentaught. The aim is to move away from stating objectives in terms ofoutcomes (e.g. to count to 100 in tens, or to learn the story of the ‘GreedyCat’) and instead to focus on the purpose of the learning and the processes
through which it is to be achieved, using key phrases such as, tounderstand, to compare, to identify etc. An analysis of this kind helps tofocus the teacher’s attention on the most appropriate form of pedagogy forachieving such objectives.

•

The use of extended questioning techniques which allows thoughtful
discourse (Brophy 2004) to occur during dialogic whole class discussion(Alexander 2008a). This involves the use of more open questions, andallowing pupils more ‘thinking time’ between answers.

•

Increasing pupil participation, particularly during class discussion.
Whenever possible therefore, investigation of pupils’ ideas precedes
instruction. Thus in an English lesson on ‘shops’ the teacher might first
ask the class about local shops, what they like to buy etc., before putting
up flash cards with the sentences, “This is a toy (sweet, cake) shop.”•

Developing a spirit of cooperation between pupils through the use ofgroup and pair work. For this to result in effective learning it is necessary
for pupils to formulate, with the help of the teacher, their own rules forworking in groups and to be trained in ways of maintaining group activity
and of arriving at decisions through consensus rather than by majority
vote (Kutnick et al 2005). An important element in the training is toprovide opportunities for groups to evaluate how well they worked
together and to think about how they might improve their collaboration on
future occasions. This can be undertaken as part of a general classdebriefing or by getting pupils to engage in some form of self-evaluation
activity.

5

•

Providing appropriate feedback which allows pupils to reflect on theirwork and if possible to discover errors for themselves and to correct them.
This kind of informing feedback is designed to help pupils develop
strategies for problem solving and for developing understanding so thateventually they are able to self-regulate their own learning and become
what Galton (2007) has termed metacognitively wise. It contrasts withcorrective forms of feedback where the teacher identifies the error for thepupil and then demonstrates the correct solution. There is evidence that
although corrective feedback is useful when the lesson is focused on what
Biggs (1994) and Biggs and Collis (1982) termed surface rather than deeplearning, the feedback activities associated with self-regulation (providing
cues, reinforcing pupils sense of self-efficacy etc) result in massive effectsizes of the order of 0.90 compared to corrective feedback with moremodest values of 0.37 (Hattie and Timperley 2007). In particular, the useof praise for getting a correct answer only results in an effect size of 0.14
so that it is important when praising students to relate it specifically tosome particular quality of the pupil’s response and to remember also topraise pupils whose answer may be inappropriate but who neverthelesshave made a determined effort to arrive at an acceptable solution. Praisefor effort can have a powerful motivational effect.

•

Creating a framework for assessment for learning which follows the ideas
developed by Black and Wiliam (1998). In this approach tests andworksheets are not the sole means by which teachers determine whether apupil has mastered a topic. When moving from teaching for transmission
to teaching for understanding (Good and Brophy 2002) it is equallyimportant to probe the thought processes of pupils as they carry out the settask. Thus debriefing students, listening to their explanations, getting
students to identify when they need help etc. are all important assessment
tools and link closely with the kinds of informative feedback discussed
previously (Black et al. 2003).

2.12

It is important to stress that these are but guiding principles. How the teacher
puts these principles into practice will vary according to the specific contexts
operating in the particular classroom such as the physical circumstances, thequalities of the pupils etc. This is in accordance with Gage’s (1978) definitionof pedagogy as the science of the art of teaching. The principles of effective
teaching derive from our knowledge of how human beings learn but the art ofteaching, putting these principles into practice is built on teachers’ experience;
what is usually termed craft knowledge. Thus Hong Kong teachers in thisstudy have developed several ways of increasing pupil participation, quite
unlike those seen in Western classrooms including a practice known as ‘daily
talk’ where the teacher and pupils greet each other at the start of the lessonusing the target language that was taught on the previous occasion.

2.13

In concluding this section therefore it should by now be clear that the initial
request by teachers that the then EMB provide a prescriptive list of approved
SCT methods was a distraction from the task that lay ahead of all involved in
the SCT study. The principles of effective teaching are the same in classes ofall sizes. The advantage of a smaller class is that it is easier to put these6principles into practice and to monitor their effect on pupils. The task of thethen EMB school support team has been to work alongside teachers indeveloping ways that enable these principles of teaching to operate within thelocal culture.

3.

Research measures used in the Study

3.1

The design of the study was such that it involved three levels of analysis; thatof the school, the class and the pupil. An overview of the various research
instruments used is shown in Table 3.1.

Table 3.1

Overview of the measures used in the SCT Study

School Level
Population characteristics• Parents’ survey• Head’s survey• Year Group• SubjectClass level
Teacher characteristics• Gender• Experience• Qualifications• Training• Subject specialism• Survey of opinions
Class size
Observation• Questions asked• Statements made• Feedback given• Whole class• Groups/pairs• Individual• Sustained

3.2

Pupil Level
Pupil characteristics• Gender• Age• Place of birth• S.E.S.
Outcome measures• Attainment• Attitudes• Motivation• Self-esteem
Observations• Time on task
• Pupil-pupil talk
• Pupil-teacher talk
• Target’s setting

At school level a questionnaire was administered to the parents of both P1
cohorts and to parents from the reference schools. It asked for information
about such matters as place of birth of their children, level of education, typeof employment, salary, accommodation and also explored the ways that they
supported their children’s learning outside school (extra tuition, helping withhomework, making educational visits etc.). In each administration response
rates were high (around 90%) and, not surprisingly the degree of support given
to a child outside school was highly correlated with family background andincome. A factor analysis provided an overall measure of parental support
with an internal consistency of 0.70. The scale had 11 items with loadings
greater than 0.65 principally concerning the educational level of parents, theirjoint income, and the home resources available to support the child’s learning,
the frequency of educational visits and the parents’ involvement in school7

activities. Headteachers were also given a questionnaire, similar to the ones
used to investigate teachers’ opinions about class size but which also exploredthe strategy for implementing SCT in the particular school.
3.3

At class level, background data on the teachers’ qualifications and training
was collected from official records. Teachers’ opinions about SCT were
solicited using a questionnaire based on earlier studies by Bennett (1996) andBlatchford (2003). This was first administered in 2005/06 and repeated in the
2007/08 school year. For the second administration a number of items wereadded that attempted to explore how far teachers felt that some of the practices
developed for use in smaller classes were also applicable in normal size ones.
In each of the first 3 years of the study a sample of teachers (around 100 in
any year) were observed using a modified version of the two original
ORACLE (Observational Research and Classroom Evaluation) Projectsystematic observation instruments (Galton et al 1980). This codes teachers’
and pupils’ behaviour at 30 second intervals during the lesson. Members of thethen EMB research team were trained to use the instrument by the consultant.
A detailed version of the observation schedule is contained in the Appendix II.

3.4

At pupil level details of the pupils’ background were again obtained fromofficial records. Attainment tests were specially constructed by the then EMB.
In Chinese and English there were sections on listening, reading and writing.
Items were mainly of a multiple choice variety. The pupils’ attitudes toChinese, English and mathematics and the motivation and self-esteem
measures were based on instruments used by Galton et al (2003) in studies ofpupils transferring from primary to secondary school in England. Despite
initial fears of using ‘Likert’ type 5 point scale questionnaires with younger
pupils (For the start and end of P1 a 3-point scale was adopted and the numberof questions reduced) the scales had high internal consistency (α> 0.90 in mostcases) and showed remarkable stability from year to year. An exception in P1
was the motivation scale (Cronbach α =0.65) so that motivation and self
esteem were merged into a single scale and this practice was retained insubsequent year groups for the sake of continuity. Observations on pupils werealso carried out at the same time that the data on teachers was collected. In
each class a stratified sample (3 boys and 3 girls) of six ‘target’ pupils was
randomly selected for observation.

3.5

The quantity of data available for analysis was considerable. In most years
some 700 classes were tested. This resulted in approximately 20,000 pupils
taking the end of P1 tests in each of the subjects, all of whom were followed
for a second year. Nearly 23,500 took the end of the P2 tests in each subject,the majority having entered the study at the beginning of P1. The
corresponding figure for the number of pupils taking the end of P3 test was
20,500 while just over 11,000 of these pupils continued to the end of P4. Of
the total sample who started in P1 classes, approximately 53.9% started insmall classes, 27.2% came from the control classes in the same schools withthe remaining 18.9% being drawn from the reference schools. Full details of
the numbers of pupils involved in the various tests can be found later in a later
section of this report (Table 12.1).

8

4.

The Consultant’s visit to the schools

4.1

By the end of 2006/07 academic year the consultant had visited all but one
school in the SCT study and observed approximately equal numbers ofChinese, mathematics and English classes. This was in addition to thesystematic observations carried out by members of the then EMB researchteam. In the first year of the study it was decided that the consultant should
also make an annual visit to 8 of the 37 experimental schools in attempt tomonitor changes over the lifetime of the study. These eight so called ‘sample
schools’ were selected mainly on the basis of their relative academic
performance during the first year of the study supplemented by advice fromthe school support team who had detailed knowledge of the schools inquestion. The final visit to the sample schools took place in November 2007
when the remaining unseen school was also visited.

4.2

In the event it was only possible to follow the progress of relatively few
teachers over the three year period. This was because some Principals adopted
a policy of giving as many of the staff as possible experience of small classes
so that a teacher observed in one year would have moved back to teachingnormal classes in subsequent years. In other cases moves to different year
groups also reduced the opportunities of seeing the same teachers on morethan one occasion. For these reasons it was difficult to form a consideredjudgement about the changes in classroom practice that may have taken placeover the lifetime of the project.

4.3

The general impression gained, which was confirmed by the more detailed
systematic observation during the course of the study, was that there wasconsiderable variation across schools and between teachers within the sameschool. In one mathematics lesson, for example, P2 groups of pupils in a smallclass were asked to classify different objects according to their shape (circle,
square, rectangle etc). The groups worked badly because only one pupil
explored the characteristics of the object at a time (rolling or sliding) whileothers had to watch. This led to excessive noise and a tendency to grab at theobjects in order to get a turn. In reporting back it became clear that pupils
had not understood the purpose of the lesson so the teacher then demonstrated
what they should have done.

4.4

In the previous year the same teacher had been observed teaching the conceptof ‘reversibility’ to another small P2 class. Although this was the first time,
according to the teacher, that they had encountered this idea no attempt wasmade to explore with the use of counters or other objects, the difference
between ten lots of 5 and 5 lots of ten etc. Instead, pupils worked in pairs on aworksheet consisting of a series of simple calculations with one pupil working
out one arrangement (e.g. 5 x 2) and writing the answer on the worksheet
while the other watched. The second pupil then did the alternative calculation(e.g. 2 x 5). Again the fact that pupils had to wait for a turn led to a certain
degree of disruption. When reporting back pupils again showed they had little
understanding of what they had been asked to do or why they had beenrequired to do it.

9

4.5

This teacher seemed to have benefited little from the advice given by theschool support team. She had not established rules for working collaboratively,
did not debrief the class about how well (or badly) they had worked together.
Although it was established early on in the study that writing and similar tasks
were best done individually with results then shared, thus avoiding some
pupils having little to do in the groups, this teacher persisted with the opposite
approach. At interview she appeared to have very low expectations of these
pupils claiming as a reason for not instituting peer tutoring that all but two
pupils in the class were still at beginning P1 level.

4.6

In contrast in a P1 English class with 27 pupils the teachers used a pencil box
to teach the target language, “This is my ruler,” and “These are my pencils”
etc. This was done through class discussion. Each pupil then preparedworksheet on which they had to choose a name for the child portrayed in the
pictures. They then played a game, in pairs, using cards with pictures of pens,
pencils, ruler etc. One pupil had to select a card and asks, “Is this your/Are
these your ruler/pencils etc?” as appropriate and the other then replied using
the correct construction which the first pupil checked from the card. Then eachpupil consolidated this learning by drawing a circle around the correct
construction on their worksheet. The pair then swapped roles. At the end of
the lesson pairs of pupils came out to the front of the class and acted out thesequence.

4.7

This lesson was in sharp contrast to the one seen in the previous year where asmall P3 class spent most of their time constructing a birthday card in groups
mainly by cutting out pictures from magazines and sticking them onto the card.
Since only one of the groups was actively mounting a picture at any one point
in time most of the class had found themselves with little to do but sit andwatch for long periods. In the second year of observation, however, thisteacher was much more concerned to utilise time profitably. Thus it took time
for the teacher to distribute the packs of cards to the pairs of pupils but while
she was doing this the class sang a song in unison about what was in their
pencil cases, thus again reinforcing the initial learning. Overall, many of thesuggestions made by the school support team had been taken up. The rules forgroup work were clearly displayed, the target language was situated within afamiliar context (i.e. the pupils’ pencil cases) so that the spoken words weremore meaningful and during pair work both pupils were fully involved, whilewriting tasks were undertaken individually.

4.8

A rough estimate would suggest that only about 25% of the lessons that wereseen achieved this standard. As on previous visits lessons were rated on a five
point scale in terms of the six principles. Last year’s overall rating in the 8
repeat sample schools averaged between 2.0 and 2.5. This year thecorresponding figure was 2.75. The main weaknesses in the other lessons, as it
was in 2006/07, mainly concerned inappropriate use of groups, particularly incases where only one pupil at a time had an active role so that the remaining
members sat and watched. This situation usually led to inattention andsometimes misbehaviour on the part of the passive pupils. Part of the problem
of group work was that in a 35 minute lesson there was little time fordebriefing pupils and evaluating how well they had worked. In some schools

10teachers normally used groups in ‘double’ lessons but felt it necessary toattempt a group task because the consultant was present. Thus what was seen
may on occasions have represented atypical practice.
4.9

There were however other factors which distinguished between poor andsatisfactory lessons. In the latter case nearly all the teachers had attended thelearning circles and said at interview that they had benefited considerably as aresult of the experience, because as one teacher remarked working withcolleagues from other schools had, “made me rethink my practice.” Onefactor associated with the less satisfactory lessons was the low expectations ofsome teachers had of the pupils, as exemplified in the earlier example of theP2 mathematics lesson on reversibility. This negative view of the pupils’
ability was frequently used to justify rigid adherence to the textbook so that
often the work set was not sufficiently challenging with a consequence that
pupils lost interest, thus appearing to confirm the teacher’s assessment that“these children were unable to concentrate” for any length of time.

5.

Teacher professional development

5.1

In the 2007/08 school year most of the efforts by the school support team havebeen devoted to the schools joining the scheme for schools with a highproportion of disadvantaged pupils. Teachers from the study schools, alongwith those from the scheme, did attend a half-day seminar in December in2007 when the consultant reported on the results from the third year of
fieldwork and gave a presentation on maximising the benefits of SCT to caterfor pupils’ learning diversity.

5.2

Throughout the lifetime of the study the school support team have provided
substantial professional support to the participating schools. In the 2004/05
school year this mainly consisted of workshops on joint lesson planning andon the principles and practice of cooperative learning and individual school
visits to clarify issues and to identify the various kinds of support required. In
the spring of 2005 a group of teachers from participating schools visited smallclasses in Shanghai. In 2005/06 there was a shift of strategy away fromformal seminars towards the development of learning circles in which teachers
played a more active part, although a number of on-site workshops weredelivered at the request of schools and the study tour to Shanghai schools was
repeated in April 2006. During the year 8 learning circles were established inwhich 26 schools participated. In 2006/07 this programme was extended anda variation of the learning circles format, collaborative lesson planning circles
introduced where teachers planned lessons jointly, observed each other’steaching and then evaluated the results. By the end of the year there were 15
learning circles and 15 lesson planning circles were in existence. Outside
expert facilitators were brought in to support the work of these circles on
topics chosen by the teachers. In addition to these activities members of theschool support team continued individual school visits to discuss progress andassess needs.

11

6.

The replication of teachers’ views on small classes

6.1

The teachers’ questionnaire was first administered in 2005/06. The exercise
was repeated during the course of the 2007/08 school year, the purpose being
to see how far the experience of working with small classes had changed
opinions. A number of additional questions were added which were designed
to explore how far teachers had accepted the view put forward by the schoolsupport team that there was no special SCT method but that theimplementation of these effective practices was more difficult in normalclasses. The extra questions therefore asked if certain teaching approaches
were equally possible in large and small classes, and if so, whether using themwith a large class presented certain difficulties.

6.2

Most of responses from the earlier administration reflected the pattern reported
in previous surveys of teacher opinion on class size. There was almost uniform
agreement that when with a small class teachers felt more comfortable,
enthusiastic and relaxed. Indeed, what might be termed professional comfort(combining the scores on these items depicting positive feelings about one’s
teaching) has increased significantly for small classes since the firstadministration (mean = 4.87 in 2006 compared to 5.14 in 2008) whereas thelevel has fallen slightly when teaching normal classes (mean = 3.93 in 2006
but 3.75 in 2008). However, there is some evidence to suggest that these views
tend to be held irrespective of the experience of teaching smaller classes
because when the scores of teachers with no experience of teaching a smallclass were compared with those of their colleagues who had taught at least one
small class no significant differences emerged.

6.3

In 2006, when teachers’ opinions were first surveyed, most respondents
strongly believed that in small classes pupils received more individual
attention, were able to establish more satisfactory relationships with teachers
and were consequently better motivated. It was also thought that small classes
made it easier for teachers to identify individual pupil differences and offer
remedial help, thereby raising standards. The only advantage perceived forlarger classes was that it provided more opportunities for pupils to make agreater number of friends. In their responses Hong Kong teachers closely
resembled their English colleagues who filled in similar questionnaires for
Bennett (1996) and Blatchford (2003).

6.4

Despite having the evidence of few differences between the attention received
by pupils in small and normal classes and little difference in pupil motivation,
respondents to the second administration presented similar views to those set
out in the previous paragraph concerning the perceived advantages of having asmaller class. When the items on this section of the questionnaire were subject
to factor analysis two scales emerged. The first of these might be described asa pupil impact factor. This consisted of items dealing with the pupils’ selfconfidence, motivation, and standards of work, amount of individual attention
received, relationships with teachers and other pupils and the likelihood of
being bullied (score reversed). The second factor concerned the impact onclassroom practice, and covered such aspects as planning and preparation time,12

choice of curriculum content and teaching approach, the amount of time
available for assessment, reflection, liaison with colleagues and parents as wellas aspects of discipline and classroom control (including the flexible use of
space and freedom of movement). Table 6.1 shows the mean difference inscores of a sub-sample of teachers who completed the questionnaire on the
two administrations. On both factors a low score (scale 1 to 5) indicates thatteachers felt that increasing class size has an adverse effect. There was anegligible shift in opinion over the two-year interval. Older, more experienced
teachers believed that increasing class size had a bigger impact on pupils whilefemale teachers (the majority) felt its consequences on classroom practicewere more adverse.
Table 6.1

Effects of increasing class size

Factor

2006

2008

Mean

s.d.

N

Mean

s.d.

N

Pupil impact

1.29

0.65

420

1.24

0.57

420

Classroom practice

1.87

0.59

436

1.85

0.44

436

6.5

As explained earlier, the 2008 sample of teachers was also asked whether it
was possible, if more difficult, to carry out certain activities in normal classes
as well as small ones. The majority of the respondents felt that six out of the
14 tasks were inappropriate in normal classes. It was thought impossible tocater for slow learners, match tasks to individuals, give individuals extra help,
cater for gifted pupils, mark pupils’ work during class and use across-the-agegroup peer tutoring. All these items reflect the widely held view that smallerclasses allow individual pupils to receive more attention.

6.6

Three items were thought possible in normal as well as small classes althoughmore difficult in the former. These were the ability to differentiate by task, tohold class discussions and do group work. Finally, a majority of teachers feltthat the following 5 activities were equally appropriate in both small andnormal classes. These consisted of setting practical tasks, giving oral
feedback, doing pair work, involving pupils in their own assessment andmaking use of within-the-age-group peer tutoring. These findings do suggestthat a majority of teachers do now recognise that apart from catering forindividual differences most of the common teaching approaches can be used inboth small and normal classes, although with a degree of difficulty in somecases. As such it marks a shift of opinion from the start of the study whenmany teachers demanded that they should be informed about ‘SCT methods.’

6.7

In the 2006 administration some questions were included which were notsolely concerned with the effects of class size. The first of these asked
respondents to identify those aspects of support that had the greatest impact onteaching and learning and the degree of help received in relation to thesevarious inputs. Table 6.2 contrasts differences between the value placed oneach aspect of support and the extent of the help actually received for both the2006 and 2008 administrations. Each aspect of support is placed in rank orderaccording to its mean rating. For the 2008 administration school sharing was

13divided into between and within school activity and an item on peer
observation added.
6.8

As in 2006, teachers in this latest survey place the highest value on practicalassistance in technical matters (particularly in computing) and from social
workers and educational psychologists when dealing with special educational
needs (SEN) pupils. It would seem that most schools offer this support. Next
in rank order is the leadership provided by the Principal and the curriculum
coordinator together with the opportunities it affords for joint planning. Again
the value placed on these supports appears to be matched by the help received.
What does emerge in the 2008 responses is a sharper differentiation between
the kinds of activities designed to promote improvements in teaching andlearning (as for example learning circles) and the value placed upon suchsupports. In 2006 inter-school sharing was not highly valued but was ranked
second in the amount of help received. In the 2008 returns it is clear thatmost of this activity involves sharing with colleagues in the same school.

Table 6.2

Relative importance of support for impact on teaching and learning
Teacher supports

2006
valuedreceived

2008
valued received

Technical support

1

1

1=

1

Professional support

2

4

1=

3

Curriculum leadership

3

6

4

4

Principal leadership

4

5

3

5

Specialised teaching

5

8

5

9

Collaborative planning

6

7

6

7

Professional development

7

3

7

6

Split-class teaching in languages and /or maths

8

10

9

12

Inter-school sharing

9

2

11

8

Clerical support

10

9

8

10

Teaching assistants

11

11

13

13

Intra-school sharing

102Peer observation

12

11

6.9

This discrepancy in the 2006 findings between what teachers were offered andwhat they valued was explored by the consultant during subsequent school
visits. It emerged from these conversations that teachers did not underrate theimportance of these exchanges with other colleagues, but that they did notvalue them because they were unable to capitalise on the benefits for a numberof reasons. First, there were too many initiatives, hence their plea to beallowed to specialise in their major subject and with a smaller range of year
groups so that they could concentrate their efforts on the small class initiative.
Second, it was often the case that curriculum leaders tended to concentrate on

14

matters of content and on preparation of resources rather than explore different
teaching approaches. Teachers attending the learning circles became frustrated
because they were unable to share their experiences with other teachers on
their return and began to question the time and effort involved.
6.10

If anything, judging by the 2008 returns this situation has not improved. Intraand inter-school sharing and peer observation are perceived to be of little
value despite research evidence that creating communities of practice is one of
the most effective ways of bringing about changes in classroom pedagogy
Louis and Marks (1998); Watkins (2005); Stoll and Louis (2007). It would
appear that while school Principals are providing opportunities for teachers toshare experiences the results of such exchanges bring few perceived benefits
to the participants. Principals and curriculum leaders will therefore need torethink the nature of the support they provide for such activities. They will
also need to persuade teachers that there is value in sharing their experienceswith colleagues from other disciplines, since many of the classroom practices
which need changing, if SCT is to maximise its potential, are not subject
specific.

6.11

In their conversations with the consultant most teachers raised the issue oflearner diversity. Respondents to the questionnaire were asked about the mosteffective strategies for coping with classes where there was a wide range ofability. Table 6.3 compares the results from the two administrations. In the2008 version of the questionnaire same age group peer tutoring was
distinguished from across age group tuition. It would appear that there has
been a shift in strategy over the two year interval. While providing extra
tuition in breaks or after school continues to be the most favoured strategy it is
now the most frequently used one (now ranked first compared to a third in2006). This is coupled with the use of differentiated tasks (up from fourthranked to second) coupled with the use of same age peer tutoring and work ingroups. The question did not ask respondents to distinguish between different
kinds of group organisation, but the impression gained during the consultant’s
visits to schools was that teachers are operating more flexibly using a mix ofhomogeneous and heterogeneous groupings according to the demands of thetask.

Table 6.3

Ranking of strategies for coping with learner diversity
Coping strategies

2006

Extra tuition for the less able
Peer tutoring (same age group)
Peer tutoring (across age groups)
Taking pupils from class for remedial work
Group work
Providing differentiated tasks
Use of teaching assistantCo-teaching with a colleague
Self learning corner in the classroom
15

2008

valued
1
2=

used
3
1

2=
4
5
6
7
8

6
2
4
8
7
5

valued
1
5
7
2
4
3
6
8
9

used
1
3
7
5
4
2
9
8
6

6.12

The final part of the questionnaire asked teachers to rate the factors that
influenced their capacity to deliver effective teaching in a small class. Table
6.4 compares the 5 top ranked items (out of 13) for the two administrations.

Table 6.4

Major determinants of capacity to teach effectively in small classes
Statements

2006
Mean
4.31
4.20
4.03
3.76
3.74

Better catering for learner diversity
Deploying effective teaching strategies
Students’ learning capabilities
Teachers’ workloads
Curriculum adaptation

2008
Rank
1
2
3
4
5

Mean
4.38
4.27
4.23
4.49
4.02

Rank
2
3
4
1
5

6.13

The major change concerns the teachers’ workload which is now seen as the
major impediment to effective classroom teaching. In 2006 teachers reported
that they typically taught a 63½ hour week. They spent 16 hours teachingwith a further 14 hours of non-contact time occupied mainly in planning andmarking. Another 19 hours after school or at home in the evenings was taken
up by more planning, marking and administrative matters. Weekends used up
a further 14½ hours on similar tasks.

6.14

The profiles for the 2008 sample look very similar. Teaching duties now
occupy 15½ hours each week so non-contact time has risen to 14½ hours.
After school hours remains the same but work at weekends is now estimatedto take 15 hours making a total of 64 hours. As with the 2006 survey, most of
the teachers’ time when not teaching is taken up with planning lessons andwith marking work. It seems clear that schools will need to take seriously the
implications of the sixth principle (para 2.11) which argues for a movetowards an assessment for learning approach which emphasises diagnostic
rather than corrective evaluation strategies.

6.15

In 2006 the 13 items concerning the teachers’ capacity to deliver effective
teaching in small classes were the subject of a factor analysis. The sameprocedure was used with the responses from the 2008 sample and yielded asimilar profile. The strongest factor concerned aspects of learning andteaching with items such as:•

Catering more effectively for learner diversity•

Deploying effective pedagogical strategies•

The student’s capacity to learn effectively

Next there came a range of practical considerations:•

Workload•

Adequate time preparation•

Freedom and opportunity to adapt the curriculum

16The third factor might be termed the institutional climate consisting of•

Leadership of the Principal and curriculum leader•

External professional support•

A sharing school culture•

Personal continuous professional development•

Inter-school sharing on SCT

Table 6.5 compares the mean scores on the three factors across the two
administrations of the teacher questionnaire.
Table 6.5

Mean ratings on factors helping effective small class practice
FactorLearning & teaching
Practical considerations
Institutional climate

2006
Mean
4.18
3.73
3.58

s.d.
0.55
0.77
0.59

2008
N
688
687
678

Mean
4.30
4.07
3.79

s.d.
0.55
0.59
0.62

N
730
733
731

6.16

The order of priority remains unchanged although in every case the mean
ratings have increased. The result adds strength to the explanation in an earlier
paragraph (para 6.9) that while teachers recognised the value of an
institutional culture promoting sharing etc. practical considerations reduced
the opportunities to benefit from such professional discourse. Female
teachers gave higher priority to learning and teaching and to practicalconsiderations than their male colleagues. In summary, therefore, the latest
responses of teachers to the questionnaire suggest a stronger consensus overthe factors contributing to successful teaching in small classes together with arealisation of the need to deploy a wider range of strategies when tacklingproblems such as learner diversity.

6.17

Some of the teachers’ responses were similar to those reported by Professor
Frederick Leung, of The University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Education,
who carried out detailed case studies in six of the experimental schools, onbehalf of the SCT study during 2006 and 2007. In each school, the Principal,
the teacher coordinator and six class teachers and in some cases samples of
their pupils were interviewed on two occasions. Professor Leung reported thatteachers were enthusiastic and committed. Their main wish was for more noncontact time in which to plan and share with colleagues. While requesting
more help from the education authorities and the support staff, teachers wereunable to convey to Professor Leung exactly what form such help should take.
All teachers stated that their relationships with pupils in the smaller classes
had improved, and this sentiment was supported by pupils. Teachers also feltthat the period of the SCT study was too short to allow them to devise
effective strategies for teaching a small class.

17

6.18

The Principals also endorsed the value of SCT arguing that it improved pupil
motivation and had particular advantages for slow learners, but like theteachers they were also unable to explain to Professor Leung what aspects of
SCT brought about these benefits. Principals saw their role mainly as‘managing the logistics’ and being resource providers although they claimed
to offer moral support to their participating staff. While they demanded moretraining for staff they also said that staff were too busy to attend the existing
programmes of professional development.

6.19

The teacher coordinators reported that they had found it difficult, at first, toimplement their role because some teachers strongly defended their subject
autonomy and didn’t wish to join with colleagues from other specialisms.
They also felt that they lacked sufficient knowledge to be able to fulfil theircoordinating role without additional external support and welcomed any
opportunities to meet with similar colleagues from other schools to discusscommon problems and ideas. In summary, therefore, Dr Leung’s reportsuggests that most participants interviewed were at a transition stage where
they were still uncertain of what was involved in implementing successful
SCT and partly wished that someone in authority would offer them aprescription that they could follow. It is therefore heartening to be able toreport from the responses to the 2008 teacher survey that many respondents
appeared to have moved on from this position and now recognised that there
never was, or could be, an available magic prescription for SCT which they
could bolt on to their existing practice.

7.

Further consideration of the observation data

7.1

Three years of systematic observation have identified only a few significant
differences in teaching approach between small and normal size classes.
Where variations exist these are mostly a consequence of changes in year
group (more factual questions in P1; more challenging ones in P3) or have to
do with subject differences (pupils are more often listened to when reading in
English while in mathematics they are listened to when offering explanations).
In all years there has been little variation in the amount of individual help that
pupils receive when they are the sole focus of the teacher’s attention. The
main difference concerns the manner in which such attention is received. In
smaller classes individual attention (mainly when part of a group or wholeclass) is given in bursts and is more likely to be sustained over the 30 second
time unit between successive observations. In normal classes such attention
consists of brief exchanges. The inference here is that in the smaller classes
there is a possibility that more insightful discourse may occur. In a small scale
study of English classrooms Hargreaves, Galton and Pell (1998) found that
more complex discourse, built around sustained teacher-pupil interactions, wasthe main difference between small and large classrooms.

7.2

As discussed earlier in the present report (paras 2.7 and 2.8) this finding is inaccord with the results from most other studies of class size reduction, even
where the numbers of pupils in a class are around 15. Mathematically,
reducing the class size from the high 30s to the low 20s affords the possibilityof only limited increases in individual attention, particularly in the present
18

study where over 60% of most lessons consist of whole class teaching during
which time the teacher is talking and no individual pupil is the focus of his or
her attention.
7.3

However, there is a further factor that helps to minimise any significant
variations between small and normal classes. So far, in the study comparisons
have been made in terms of mean differences. This takes little account of thevariation that undoubtedly exists between individual teachers (apart fromusing the standard deviation to determine the level of statistical significanceand the subsequent effect size). Using mean scores runs the risk that the highlevel of interaction of one teacher on a certain category of behaviour iscancelled out by the low level of activity of another, thus masking realdifferences in teaching behaviour.

7.4

An alternative approach is to use a statistical technique known as ‘cluster
analysis’. This is a procedure for placing individuals in groups such that thevariation between members of any group is less than the variation between
different groups. In the present study therefore we can use the technique togroup teachers (and pupils) who have similar interaction patterns. In all, datafrom 395 classrooms were available for analysis. In a minority of cases ateacher who taught a P1 class was also observed when teaching P2 or P3
classes. However because the previous analysis showed that the main
variations across the interaction categories was a function of the different year
groups, the class rather than the individual was chosen as the unit of analysis.

7.5

Table 7.1 shows the characteristics of the 4 cluster solutions. Type 1 teachers
are mainly identified by the relatively high amounts of attention they give toindividual pupils (both boys and girls). They tend to prefer pair work and havethe highest levels of sustained conversation of the four types. They are second
only to Type 4 teachers in asking open-ended questions and highest on
statements of ideas. Feedback tends to be of the informing rather than thecorrecting kind. These teachers might therefore be describes as individual
and pair sustained enquirers.

Table 7.1

Characteristics of the four teacher types 1

Observation categories

Questions
Which recall facts
offer closed solutions
offer open ideas
refer to task supervisionrefer to routine activity
All questions

Mean % of all observations
Type 1
Type 2Type 3
Type 4(N=119)(N=73)(N=119)(N=84)
3.90
8.95
5.14
2.86
1.19
22.03

4.89
7.35
3.06
3.70
0.46
19.46

1

3.31
13.95
2.44
1.09
0.28
21.07

7.14
13.61
5.79
3.73
0.75
31.03

Effect
size

M
M
M
M
S
M

In some categories rounding off the figures to two places of decimals may mean that the totals do not
add exactly to 100.00.

19

Observation categories

Statements
of factof ideasof task directionof correcting feedbackof informing feedbackof behaviour feedbackof routine directions
All statements
Listening/watching pupils
report or explainReadin silence (monitoring)
All listening/watching
Audience
individual boy
individual girlboy for groupgirl for groupboy for classgirl for class
Pair
whole group (no one in focus)
whole class (no one in focus)
Sustained

Mean % of all observations
Type 1
Type 2Type 3
Type 4(N=119)(N=73)(N=119)(N=84)

Effect
size

10.65
4.11
16.12
5.72
6.40
4.78
5.78
53.55

9.37
0.78
25.86
6.07
4.34
2.47
4.47
53.36

15.93
1.57
15.33
6.39
2.78
4.51
5.30
51.81

9.84
1.83
19.01
4.60
4.21
4.07
8.85
52.40

M
M
L
None
M
S
M
None

11.27
5.57
8.83
25.87

12.06
2.28
12.93
27.27

9.87
10.44
6.81
27.11

7.20
5.14
4.50
16.85

S
M
M
M

5.75
2.61
2.58
1.79
12.62
9.38
8.38
8.20
48.69
15.96

1.69
0.82
9.50
9.18
7.12
4.02
0.50
20.41
46.74
9.51

1.21
0.64
2.19
1.12
13.65
9.58
1.51
6.67
63.42
10.40

1.98
0.52
2.42
2.48
11.87
9.15
2.10
8.49
60.99
11.67

L
M
L
L
M
M
L
L
L
S

Effect size: S=small; M=medium & L=large where 0.2<S <0.5 <M<0.8 <L(Cohen 1988)

7.6

Type 2 teachers favour the use of group work. They have the lowest level ofquestioning overall but the highest percentage of task direction statements,
presumably to do with setting up the groups. They spend most time either
listening to pupils report or explain or else monitoring the pupils’ activity.
They might be described group task monitors. Both Type 3 and Type 4teachers favour whole class teaching. Whereas Type 4 teachers are
distinguished by high levels of questioning across all five categories stated inTable 7.1. Type 3 teachers have high levels of statement of fact and of
correcting feedback. When listening to pupils it is mostly to hear them readrather than silently monitoring pupils while they work. We might thus
describe Type 3 teachers as whole class instructors while Type 4 practitioners
might more aptly be named whole class questioners.

7.7

In Table 7.2 the proportions of these teacher types in small and normal classes
are examined. The analysis is shown separately for the 3 year groups given thepossibility that as pupils advance through primary school the teachingapproach changes. In general, there tends to be a mix of teaching approaches
in the small classes, particularly in the P1 year. In normal classes, however,
one type tends to dominate in the different year groups. Thus 60% of teachers
20

in P1 normal classes are whole class instructors while in P2 nearly half (46%)
are whole class questioners and 54% of P3 normal classes use a mixture ofindividual and pair work to promote sustained enquiry. These findings suggestthat when teaching small classes many teachers were still experimenting withdifferent approaches, even after three years, while in normal classes there
seems to be a progression from direct instruction in P1 to more interactiveclass teaching in P2, while in P3 pupils are given more responsibility for
managing their learning so that the teacher’s support becomes moreindividualised. A further finding which is common to all clusters emerges
from Table 7.1 is that irrespective of whether a pupils is the focus of theteacher’s attention individually, as part of a group or as part of a class, it isboys who in every case receive more attention than girls.
Table 7.2

% of teaching types in small & normal classes in P1 to P3 years

Teacher types
Individual and pair sustained
enquirers
Group task monitors
Whole class instructors
Whole class questioners
Number of teachers

7.8

P1 classes
small normal
31
21

P2 classes
small normal
41
15

P3 classes
small Normal
17
54

21
23
25
181

14
23
23
44

31
34
17
70

6
60
13
48

15
23
46
13

5
28
5
39

It is also possible to investigate the links between specific subjects andteaching types. This is done in Table 7.3. Here because of small numbers it is
not possible to conduct the analysis across the three year groups so the results
are an aggregate of P1, P2 and P3. For normal classes whole class instruction
is a favoured teaching approach used across all subjects although for English
individual instruction and pair work also form strong elements of typicalpractice. In small classes, however, there is more variation. In Chinese there isevidence of the increasing use of group work and in mathematics a switch toindividual and pair work with an emphasis on challenging questions rather
than factual statements. English shows some change although individualenquirers and class instructors appear to remain the dominant teachingapproach. These findings support the comments based on the consultant’s
school visits in the first two years of the study, where it was suggested that
English teaching, in particular, had tended to regress in the use of whole class
instruction. Both Tables 7.2 and 7.3 suggest a willingness among practitioners
to experiment in the use of different teaching methods when faced with asmaller class. Further analysis shows a shift away from group task monitoring
towards more challenging individual and pair work among teachers with thegreatest experience of SCT during the three years in which observations were
made.

21

Table 7.3% of teaching types in the three core subjects

Teacher types

ChineseEnglishMathematics

small

normalsmall

normalsmall

NormalIndividual and pair sustained
enquirers

20

28

29

42

37

24

Group task monitors

27

10

12

0

25

11

Whole class instructors

26

48

35

40

18

40

Whole class questioners

27

14

24

18

20

25

Number of teachers

94

29

101

38

96

37

7.9

A similar analysis can be carried out with the pupil observations. Again four
substantial clusters emerged. Because of the large number of categories only
those discriminating between the clusters which help to identify the pupil
types are shown in Table 7.4. They bear a remarkable similarity to pupils in
English primary classrooms who were first identified in the ORACLE(Observational Learning and Classroom Learning Evaluation) study andsubsequently replicated in a repeat of the original research two decades later(Galton et al. 1980, 1999). Type I were described as solitary workers because
they are on task for almost the entire lesson even when the teacher is engaged
with other pupils elsewhere in the classroom. Although they sit in groups fornearly 70% of the time they work on their own. Their contact with the teacher
mainly involves being part of his/her audience when nobody in the class is in
focus. Such pupils were first identified by McClelland (1963) in North
American science classes and were described at the time as ‘undeflected
workers’. McClelland likened these students to human cannonballs because
they remained on course, despite the vagaries of the teaching. In the SCT
study they form 43.8% of the observed sample.

7.10

Type 2 pupils (22.4% of the sample) were labelled intermittent workers in the
ORACLE study. These pupils have the highest levels of distraction. There is aslight emphasis on sitting in pairs and the data suggests that while these pupil
work when the teacher is present they can easily be distracted when theteacher is either elsewhere, monitoring class activity or when these pupils arepart of the teacher’s audience when sitting as a class at the front of the room.

Table 7.4

Characteristics of the four pupil types

Observation categories

Target pupil activity
Target’s behaviour
On-task
Distracted/partially distracted

Mean % of all observations
Type 1
Type 2Type 3
Type 4(N=690) (N=353) (N=368) (N=165)

94.49
5.07

73.37
23.23

22

90.24
8.10

65.45
19.39

Effectsize

LM

Observation categories

Target pupil’s location
In baseOut of baseTeacher’s activity
Elsewhere in the classroom
Monitoring
Seating
Alone
Pair
Group
At front of classMode of working
Individual
Pair
Group
Class
Target pupil-adult activity
Target’s role
Seeks interaction with adultPart of teacher audience
Content
Task work/supervision
Feedback on work: praise
Setting
T gives individual attention
T interacts with whole class
Target-peer activity
Target’s role
Target initiates contact
Target responds to contact
Target sustains interaction
Mode of contact
Speaking-listening
Task 2Same
Different

Mean % of all observations
Type 1
Type 2Type 3
Type 4(N=690) (N=353) (N=368) (N=165)
99.31
0.40

98.44
0.99

97.76
1.77

78.48
19.09

L
L

66.59
2.72

45.54
22.80

69.84
6.66

60.91
6.52

S
M

0.15
0.15
69.35
17.14

24.72
24.72
45.05
8.92

5.77
5.77
73.03
4.01

6.82
6.82
60.76
20.91

L
S
S
S

59.24
2.39
16.27
22.10

60.34
2.90
5.45
31.23

15.29
21.81
52.38
10.53

40.61
6.21
30.76
22.42

L
M
L
S

0.98
71.38

1.84
72.59

1.49
21.67

10.61
46.36

M
L

71.59
1.09

72.31
0.92

26.09
1.36

41.21
7.27

L
M

0.00
65.80

2.27
61.40

1.49
13.25

4.55
39.39

S
L

4.57
7.14
0.00

3.68
4.32
0.00

25.53
33.45
2.92

9.24
14.39
5.45

L
S
M

7.97

5.67

43.86

18.94

L

12.32
0.04

7.22
1.27

62.50
0.75

25.45
5.78

L
M

Effect size: S=small; M=medium & L=large where 0.2<S <0.5 <M<0.8 <L

7.11

Effectsize(Cohen 1988)

The third type of pupils was called active collaborators in the ORACLE study.
They make up 23.4% of the observed Hong Kong sample and are working on
their task for over 90% of the lesson, even when the teacher is engaged
elsewhere in the classroom. They generally sit and work in groups where theyboth initiate and respond to other pupils working on the same task. In many

2

Task here refers only to situations where the target pupil is interacting with either one or more peers.
The totals do not add up to 100% since such interactions are only a proportion of the target’s behaviour.

23

ways these pupils are similar to the solitary workers, the main difference beingthat they tend to operate in collaborative settings rather than on their own.
Finally the fourth type of pupil, originally labelled attention seekers, in the
ORACLE study are perhaps more aptly described as attention grabbers
because they not only seek but also more often succeed in obtaining theteacher’s undivided attention. They have the lowest levels of on-task
behaviour and tend to be frequently out of their base area, either because they
are required to sit at the front of the class or they are perhaps seeking
assistance or, more likely, given the relatively high levels of distraction
chatting to another group. Such conversations tend to be sustained. These
pupils more often attempt to seek the teacher’s presence or else succeed ingaining his/her attention. We might hypothesise that some of these pupils areperhaps in need of reassurance since the teacher’s feedback often consists ofpraise. These attention grabbers form 10.5% of the sample.
7.12

There are no significant ability variations across the four types of pupil andneither do the proportions vary between the three subject domains. There are
however gender differences. Of the 690 solitary workers 378 or 54.8% weregirls whereas among the attention grabbers 98 of the 165 of this type of pupil(59.4%) were boys. Table 7.5 looks at the distribution of the various pupil
types between small and normal classes and between year groups.

Table 7.5

% of pupil types broken down by class size and year group
Solitary
workers

Class
Small
Normal
Year
P1
P2
P3

Intermittent Active
Attention
workers
collaborators grabbers

N

43.2
45.4

21.2
25.8

25.2**
18.0

10.4
10.8

1177
399

44.0
41.9
44.3

24.6
20.7
18.6

20.2
23.3
30.0**

11.2
14.1
7.1*

913
227
436

** = P< 0.01: * = p<0.05 (small effect size)

7.13

The main difference between the small and normal classes lies in the increasein number of active collaborators in the former. As pupils move from P1 to
P3 the percentage of this type of pupil also increases (significant at the 1%
level) while the number of attention grabbers decreases (significant at the 5%
level). Most of the changes occur in P3. When the percentages in the P3 year
are broken down by class size it emerges that the increase in active
collaborators arises from a decrease in both the intermittent workers (downfrom 28.2% to 13.2%) and the attention grabbers (down from 11.5% to 4.6%).
These are the groups with the highest levels of off task behaviour. In bothcases the level of significance reaches 1% and result in medium effect sizes.

7.14

It is also possible to examine the relationship between teaching and pupil types
and this is shown in Table 7.6. Only the profile of the whole class instructors
differs from the overall distribution giving rise to a small effect size at the 1%
significance level. The fact that these class instructors have a higher

24

proportion of pupils ‘on task’ may, however, be no guarantee that it
necessarily results in increased understanding, since when the teacher isaddressing the class and these pupils are listening there may some who areuncomprehending. The fact that, overall, pupil classification appears
independent of teaching approach (at least in terms of this typology) suggeststhat the different pattern of behaviour exhibited by certain pupils may partly
be a function of their personality. It might, for example, be that the attention
grabbers consist mainly of pupils who are shy, anxious introverts who need toseek constant reassurance.
Table 7.6

Variation of % of pupil profiles by teacher types
Teacher type

Pupil TypeN

Individual Group
Whole
Whole
and pair
task
class
class
sustained monitors instructors questioners
enquirers
Solitary workers

36

42

53**

42

690

Intermittent workers

25

19

21

22

353

Active Collaborators

26

32

17

23

368

Attention Grabbers

13

7

9

12

165

Total Percentage

100

100

100

100

528

240

498

310

N

1576

** =p<0.01 (small size effect)

7.15

It is also possible to examine the relative effectiveness of the different
teaching approaches in small classes as they manifest themselves in thedescriptions of the various teacher types. This possible for P1 and P2 classes
in each of the subjects since only Cohort 1 were in small classes in P3 andnumbers of teachers in the various cells then becomes impossibly small. For
each analysis the scores of the pupils (both attitudes and attainment) wereconverted to percentages, ranked and divided into four quartiles. For eachteacher type the top, bottom and combined middle range percentages werethen aggregated.

7.16

At P1 none of the four teacher types’ pupils make significantly more progressin attainment in all the three subjects but there are some differences in respectof attitudes. When Chinese ‘learning disposition’ scores (combined attitude
and motivation) were analysed then pupils in the top third range who were
taught by type 1 teachers (individual and pair enquirers) had significantly
higher scores (p<0.05; large effect size). In English, however there were no
significant differences for either attainment or attitude but in mathematics it
was the type 4 teachers (whole class questionnaires) whose pupils in the top
third range exhibited the strongest mathematics learning disposition.

25

7.17

At P2 there were no differences either in Chinese attitudes or attainment but inEnglish, the pupils of whole class questioners (type 4) who were in the top
third range did best overall in attitudes and attainment (p<0.01; large effectsize). Interestingly among the English small classes in P2 there were no type 2(group task monitors) teachers. In mathematics at P2 there were neither
attitude nor attainment difference across all four teacher types. A similar
analysis could not be conducted for P3 since only Cohort 1 classes were small
ones and numbers did not allow an extended analysis of this kind.

7.18

The reason for so few significant effects probably lies in the small numbers ofclasses involved. There were 69 P1 and 41 P2 teachers of small classes. By thetime these were sub-divided between three subjects and four teacher types therange of pupils in any combination of category (subject x type) ranged from 1
to 10. In an effort to improve numbers in each cell the aggregated score inboth attainment and learning disposition were also analysed. No differences inattainment emerged but the P2 pupils of Type 3 (whole class instructors) had
the poorest learning disposition while those of the whole class questioners(type 4) had the best (p<0.05; large effect size).

7.19

In summary, the main conclusion to emerge from this analysis is that while innormal classes most teachers stuck to the whole class instructor mode, within
the small classes there continued to be a degree of experimentation across theremaining three approaches. This in part may account for the inconsistency inthe attitudes and attainment differences since teachers had not yet decided intheir own minds which activities were suited to the use of a particularapproach. In the use of group work, for example there was still a highproportion of disengaged pupils, a fact confirmed by the observations of theconsultant on his school visits. Looking at ways of devising group tasks sothat more pupils participated for a greater part of the time was clearly an issue
which teachers were still having to grapple with.

8.

Impact of small classes on the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA)

8.1

By the 2006/07 school year pupils from Cohort 1 had been in small classes forthree consecutive years. This provided an opportunity to make further
comparison on the impact of SCT using the TSA measures which pupils
complete during their P3 year. Two kinds of comparison are possible. The
first of these investigate the proportion of pupils that achieve a level of basic
competence in Chinese, English and mathematics. The second comparison
uses the mean scores on the sub-tests measuring various TSA skills. Some ofthese comparisons can be problematic in that for certain skills, particularly
those involving speaking and listening a ‘light sampling’ approach is used sothat not all of the pupils in a school’s P3 year group will take a particular test.
This introduces the possibility of random sampling errors.

8.2

For the analysis three groups were used. The first of these consisted of the 37‘experimental’ schools taking part in the SCT study. The second group
comprised of the 15 reference schools and the third group were matchedagainst the characteristics of the ‘experimental’ schools. In each case the 2004
TSA score of a school with similar population characteristics was matched26

with an experimental school to give 37 pairs. The 2006 TSA scores also
provided further background data on which to evaluate the performance of thethree groups of school on the 2007 assessment. Figure 8.1 looks at the %achieving basic competence in mathematics in the 3 groups of schools over theperiod 2005-07, together with the overall result for all schools in the territory.
In 2005 the schools in the study had the lowest proportion of P3 pupils
reaching basic competence (83.1%) compared to the average total across all
schools in the territory (88.6). In the 2006 assessment, however, both theexperimental schools and the matched sample had significantly improved theirprofile (1% level small effect size) with 89.4% and 89.2% of pupils reachingbasic competence compared to 88.2% in all schools. For 2007, the first year
P3 pupils were in small classes there was a slight regression although all threegroups of schools achieved higher scores than the territory wide average.
The experimental schools and the matched sample achieved similar results(88.1% and 88.9% respectively) against an average for all schools of 88.6%.
On these figures, therefore, it would seem that the explanation for the
improvement is likely to be the growing familiarity with the test itself rather
than the size of the class. This would have made it possible for teachers tocoach the pupils more effectively in 2006 and to maintain this improvement in2007.

Fig 8.1 TSA comparisons in mathematics
90
88

study schools

86

referance schools% reaching BCL 84

matched schools

82

all schools

80
78
2005

8.3

2006

2007

The mathematics data was then analysed for a variety of different skills. This
gave four scores each for number, measures, shape and space and data
handling yielding 16 comparisons overall. In no case did the analysis yield asignificant difference between the three school samples in any of the three
years. As a final check residual gains for the experimental schools and the
combined matched and reference schools were estimated using the 2005
scores to predict the 2006 and 2007 ones. These are shown in Table 8.1.

Table 8.1

Residual gains in mathematics basic competence using 2005 scoresto predict scores for 2006 & 2007
SampleExperimental schools
Matched + reference schools
Total

Mean
0.154
-0.098
0.000

2006
s.d.
6.506
6.518
6.479

27

N
36
57
93

Mean
0.670
-0.423
0.000

2007
s.d.
6.354
7.502
7.064

N
36
57
93

8.4

Although the trend is for the smaller classes to have positive residuals
compared to the control schools this is partly due to the higher base achievedby the reference schools in 2005. None of the differences are statisticallysignificant (below the 5% level) and result in negligible effect sizes (0.04 in2006 and 0.14 in 2007). This comes about because the standard deviations arecomparatively large indicating that there is a wide variation across schools
within the experimental and control groups.

8.5

Figure 8.2 repeats the above analysis for Chinese. The overall pattern issimilar to that in mathematics, in that the major improvements take place in2006. However in this case the matched schools make significantly moreprogress than those in the SCT study (1% level; small effect size) but thisdifference is not maintained in 2007 when SCT pupils were in small classes.
Table 8.2 shows the residual gains for the Chinese results.
Fig 8.2 TSA comparisons in Chinese
88
study schools

86

referance schools% reaching BCL 84

matched schools
all schools

82
80
2005

2006

2007

The mean residual change scores tell a similar story. The improvements in2006 yield a small size effect (0.20) in favour of the control schools (matched+ reference combined) but the difference just fails to reach statisticalsignificance. With the 2007 figures the gap has been reduced, although theexperimental schools still produce a negative mean gain indicating that they
do less well than the 2005 scores would predict. Again, the magnitude of thestandard error indicates that there is considerable variation between schools inboth groups of schools (experimental and controls).

Table 8.2

Residual gains in Chinese basic competence using 2005 scores topredict scores for 2006 & 2007
SampleExperimental schools
Matched + reference schools
Total

Mean
-0.691
0.436
0.000

2006
s.d.
6.863
5.741
6.188

N
36
57
93

Mean
-0.267
0.169
0.000

2007
s.d.
7.505
7.502
7.064

N
36
57
93

When the scores on the skills sub tests are examined there were no significant
differences in listening, reading, writing, group speaking or the first of the two
tests which assessed the pupils’ ability to interpret audio-visual information.
But for individual speaking the 2007 mean for the experimental schools was28significantly below that of both the reference and matched schools (5% level)yielding a medium effect size (Mean = 14.76 experimental schools; 15.44
controls). For the second audio-visual information test there was a significant
interaction effect between the experimental and the matched schools (5%level). The matched schools did better in the 2006 round of testing (Mean =6.44 for matched sample; mean = 6.18 for experimental schools) but by 2007
the position was reversed (Mean = 11.09 for experimental schools; mean
=10.70 for matched sample). Because these measures use ‘light sampling’ totest a proportion of the class such differences, which in any case arecomparatively small, should therefore be treated with caution.
8.6

The final set of TSA comparisons is for English and these results are displayedin Figure 8.3. Although the pattern is similar to that of the other two subjects,
in that the major improvement takes place in the 2006 year, there is morevariation in the proportion of pupils reaching basic competence initially. In theexperimental schools only 72.7% of pupils in the matched sample of schools
attained basic competence set against the territory wide average score of 79%.
In the experimental schools the corresponding figure was 74.5%.
Fig 8.3 TSA comparisons in English

82
80
78
% reaching BCL 76
74
72
70

study schools
referance schools
matched schools
all schools
2005

2006

2007

By 2006, however, the matched sample had caught up with the experimental
schools (76.1% and 76.8% respectively) and by 2007 had moved slightly
ahead (78% against 76.6%) and in doing so had nearly closed the gap with thereference school sample (78.7%). These differences, however are notstatistically significant, a result which is confirmed in Table 8.3 where theresidual gains are presented. In neither case do the residual gains difference
for 2006 or 2007 between the experimental schools and their controls reachsignificance although in both cases the study schools do less well than
predicted by their 2005 basic competence levels. The standard deviations
again indicate considerable variation across schools. In none of the skill subtests (listening, reading, writing, reading aloud or describing a picture) do
significant differences emerge.
Table 8.3

Residual gains in English basic competence using 2005 scores topredict scores for 2006 & 2007
SampleExperimental schools
Matched + reference schools
Total

Mean
-0.594
0.375
0.000

2006
s.d.
10.45
10.80
10.64

29

N
36
57
93

Mean
-0.734
0.464
0.000

2007
s.d.
10.25
9.752
9.910

N
36
57
93

8.7

In summary, therefore, being in a small class for three years appears to haveno significant effect on basic competence levels. There would appear to be
two factors contributing to this result. The first of these concerns the
improvements in 2006 which can probably be attributed to the fact thatteachers were able to prepare pupils more effectively as a result of theknowledge and experience gained from the 2005 administration. The second(and more salient factor) was the wide variation in individual school scoreswithin both the experimental sample and the control groups. As a consequence
the within group variations considerably exceeded any between groupvariance. This result merely replicates previous comparisons where formeasures of either attitudes or attainment the difference between schools wasa stronger indicator of pupil progress than class size. It would seem important
therefore to look at ways in which schools in the SCT study sample varied in
an attempt to identify those characteristics which contributed to their success.

9.

Factors contributing to school success

9.1

Throughout the course of the study small classes in some schools have done
better than others, although from year to year the most successful and weakest
schools have not always been the same. This suggests that an even bigger
factor in pupil progress arises from the combination of the teacher (some are
more effective) than others and the mix of pupils in the class (their priorattainment, home background, etc). Nevertheless school effects in the smallclasses do have some influence and it therefore seems worthwhile to identify
the variables which appear to correlate with a school’s success. Accordingly,
an aggregated score based on attainment means in the three core subjects and a
combination of attitudes and motivation scores was constructed for eachschool using the data from the small classes. This yielded six ‘very successful’or ‘high achieving’ and four ‘very weak’ or ‘low achieving’ schools.

9.2

The data from the Principals’ questionnaire were presented previously.
There, a distinction emerged between those school leaders who saw their roleas establishing goals and expectations and providing necessary resources but
then delegating responsibility for teaching and the curriculum to middle
managers and those who took a more active part in promoting andparticipating in curriculum development and the teachers’ professional
learning. A recent meta analysis of leadership dimensions (Robinson 2007)
has also identified these three factors along with two others (regular evaluationof the curriculum and teaching, and an orderly and supportive environment) as
having the greatest effect on student outcomes. But of the five leadership
dimensions the greatest effect was when school leaders actively participated incurriculum development, undertook visits to the classroom and engaged informal and informal professional development sessions. This produced a large
effect size (0.84) compared to the other four dimensions where the range
varied from 0.27 (orderly and supportive environment) to 0.42 (regular
evaluations).

9.3

The corresponding scale to Robinson’s (2007) strongest leadership dimension,
active participation in curriculum and teacher learning development, waslabelled in the SCT study curriculum development leadership. Besides the30

active participation of the school Principal this included the provision ofvarious kinds of support for the staff members’ professional development(mainly through inter- and intra-school sharing and the availability of
specialist help from outside agencies) and the creation of a collegial culture.
Table 9.1 examines the mean scores on this scale for Principals from the six
high and four low achieving schools.
Table 9.1

Principals rating as an Active Curriculum Development Leader
SchoolHigh Achieving
Low Achieving

Mean
4.67*
4.00

s.d.
0.52
0.01

N
6
4

* = p<0.05 large effect size

9.4

It can be seen that the Principals of the high achieving schools rated this kindof leadership more highly. Another factor which also correlated with being a
successful school was the Principal’s experience. In the more successful
schools Principals had been in post for, on average, 11 years and 10 months
compared to colleagues in the less successful schools where the average was
six years. Principals in more successful schools were also more concerned
about the effects of large classes on effective links with parents, presumably
because they saw such liaison as important. Finally, a further scale emerged
concerning the Principal’s beliefs about the perceived benefits of smallerclasses. This included improvements in pedagogy, ability to deal with theneeds of the less able pupils, better relationships between teachers and theirclasses and improved teamwork among staff. High scores on the scale
indicated that the Principal held strong beliefs about the positive impact ofsmall classes. This scale consisted of 33 items and had an internalconsistency (Cronbach alpha) of 0.91. In the event, however, only 27
Principals supplied a full set of responses, four of these being among the six
most successful schools. The two remaining successful schools were among
the top quartile with a mean greater than 4.0 on the 5 point scale. Of the four
least successful schools, two were in the bottom quartile with a mean rating
below 3.87 while the other two both had mean ratings of 3.97. Although thelatter trend is not as clear cut as in Table 9.1 there is some support for the viewthat a strong conviction about the value of small classes, length of experiencein post and, in particular, active involvement in the schools’ curriculum
development (including the development of teaching and learning strategies)
all contributed to successful implementation of SCT.

9.5

A further factor which appeared to differentiate between successful andunsuccessful schools was the additional support that teachers received in theform of help from a classroom assistant. The comparison is shown in Table
9.2. While the vast majority of teachers received no help, 24 of the 148
teachers in the successful schools (16.2%) had the services of a teachingassistant for varying periods each week compared to 13.0% in less successful
schools. However, when these figures were investigated further, 20 of the 24of these classroom practitioners were teachers of English. The likely inference,
therefore, is that these high achieving schools belonged to the Primary
Literacy Programme where classroom assistance was made available and the31extra help provided in the more successful schools was not due to additional
support by the Principal for SCT.
Table 9.2

Availability of teaching assistants (TAs)Periods with a TAeach week
0
1
2
3
4
6
12

High Achieving
schools
124
2
18
0
2
1
1
148*

Low Achieving
schools
40
2
1
2
1
0
0
46

Total number ofteachers
164
4
19
3
3
1
1
194

* = p<0.05 small effect size

9.6

When teacher variables are examined there were no differences inqualifications or in the average length of teaching experience between themost and least successful schools. Some of the teachers in the extreme
successful and unsuccessful schools were also part of the observation sample
and were therefore classified into the various teacher types described in
section 7 of this report. Table 9.3 shows the breakdown of the various teachingtypes. Although the trend is for the more successful schools to have a greater
proportion of individual and pair sustained enquirers and the less successful
ones to have more group task monitors these differences are not statisticallysignificant. Overall, the combined profile in the most successful and least
successful schools does not differ appreciably from that in Table 7.1 where thetotal sample of all the teachers who participated in the observation study ispresented. Here, in the schools at the extreme ends of the attainment range,
33 of the 110 teachers (30%) are individual and pair sustained enquirers
compared to 30.1% in the whole sample and 22 (20%) are group task monitors(18.2% in the whole sample). Successful and unsuccessful schools have asmaller proportion of whole class instructors (26.4 % as against 30.1% overall)and therefore slightly more whole class questioners (23.6% as against 21.3%)
but none of these differences reach significance level.

Table 9.3

% of teaching types in high and low achieving schools

Teacher types

Individual and pair sustained
enquirers
Group task monitors
Whole class instructors
Whole class questioners
Total

High achieving
schools
N
%
26
36.1
11
20
15
72

15.3
27.8
20.8
100.0

32

Low achieving
schoolsN%
7
18.4

Total sample
N
119

%
30.1

11
9
11
38

73
119
84
395

18.5
30.1
21.3
100.0

29.0
23.7
28.9
100.0

9.7

A similar analysis can be conducted for pupils. This is shown in Table 9.4.
Comparing the overall totals with the proportion of pupils types across thewhole sample (Table 7.6) it can be seen that there are more solitary workers(52.3% to 43.8%) and fewer attention grabbers or seekers (5.8% to 10.5%) andthis comes about mainly because in the low attaining schools nearly threequarters of pupils (71.9%) are of the solitary worker type compared to 42.6%
in the high achieving schools. As a result, there are considerably moreintermittent workers (high=28.4%; low=8.3%) and more active collaborators(high=22.3%; low=15.6%) in the high achieving schools, although the figure
for the active collaborators is not statistically significant. This result would
appear counter-intuitive as both theory and empirical research (Carroll, 1963,
Block, 1971, Harnischfeger & Wiley, 1978) predict that time on task is one of
the major determinants of learning. One possible explanation is that thesolitary worker category masks two different kinds of pupils. From theprofiles in Table 7.4 solitary workers are more often working on the own whenseated in a group (69.35%) or seated in front of the class listening to theteacher (17.14%). In the latter case pupils while attending to the teacher’s
words may not understand what is being said and it may be that a higher
proportion of this kind of solitary worker exists among the classes in the low
achieving schools. This would contrast with pupils who while actively
engaged when working alone were able to complete the task and gainincreased understanding as a result. Alternatively, it may be that the major
factor in determining pupil progress lie outside the classroom behaviour infactors such as teacher competence, home background, parental support and soforth. This would explain why the more successful schools appear to be able totolerate a higher proportion of pupils with a poorer work ethic, the intermittent
workers.

Table 9.4

% of pupil types in high and low achieving schools

Pupil types

Solitary workers
Intermittent workers
Active collaborators
Attention grabbers

9.8High achieving
schools
N
%
84
42.6
56
28.4
44
22.3
13
6.7
197
100.0

Low achieving
schools
N
%
69
71.9
8
8.3
15
15.6
4
4.2
96
100.0

Total
N
153
64
59
17
293

%
52.2
21.9
20.1
5.8
100.0

There is some support for the latter view in that there is a significant
difference between the high and low achieving schools in the proportion ofchildren born in Mainland China. In Cohort 1, two-thirds of pupils (66.1%)
attending low achieving schools were born in Hong Kong, whereas thecorresponding figure for the most successful schools was 86.4%. In Cohort 2
the corresponding figures were 65.2% and 85.5% respectively. Across all
schools taking part in the SCT study the percentage of children born outside
Hong Kong was just under 20%. These differences are statistically significant(1% level) and give rise to a small effect size. It follows from the earlier
analyses that place of birth is closely linked with social economic factors and33

also with the degree of support that parents give to their children in theirstudies after school. In the first year of the study a parental support index wasconstructed which included such information as educational level achieved byboth parents, family income, home resources available for learning (space,computer use, internet availability etc.) library use and frequency of outside
educational visits. Table 9.5 displays the results for both Cohort 1 and 2.
Table 9.5
SchoolHigh
achievingLowachieving

Parental support in high and low achieving schools
Cohort 1
Parentals.d.
support index
mean
28.35**
5.33
24.45

5.82

N

647

Cohort 2
Parentals.d.
support index
mean
25.59**
4.74

168

22.16

4.16

N

611
113

** = p<0.01 (medium effect size)

For both cohorts parental support is significantly greater in the high achieving
schools (1% level). Furthermore, pupils entering the high achieving schools
are more likely to have experienced kindergarten education. In the more
successful schools 99% of pupils had attended kindergarten compared to 80%
in the least successful schools.
9.9

The final part of the analysis in this section concerns the relationship between
the teachers’ main specialism and the subject that they were teaching in thesmall classes. In all schools across three years (P1 to P3) the trend is for justover a third of teachers who were trained in Chinese to find themselves mainly
teaching mathematics (34.6%). Given the research evidence pointing to thestrong links between a teacher’s subject expertise and pupil attainment, it istherefore somewhat surprising that 39.9% of teachers trained in mathematics
end up mainly teaching either Chinese or English. In the more successful
schools however the trend is not so marked and only 26% of Chinese trainedteachers are required to teach mathematics, although 39% of mathematics
trained teachers mainly teach the other two subjects (viz. Chinese and English).
In the group of less successful schools, however, 50% of Chinese trainedteachers teach mathematics while 42.8 % of mathematics teachers teach either
Chinese or English (although these percentages are based on low numbers).
Overall, these differences are significant (5% level) and yield a small effectsize. Returning to the puzzling features of Table 9.4 these poorly qualified
mathematics teachers may be able to sustain effective control and hence havea high proportion of the pupils on task (i.e. more solitary and fewer
intermittent workers) but their lack of subject knowledge may result in pupils
failing to gain sufficient understanding.

9.10

In summary, therefore the more successful schools tend to have moreexperienced Principals who have stronger expectations as to the possibilities
of SCT seeing it, in particular, as a means for promoting improved attainment
and motivation, for coping with pupil diversity and for fostering better
relationships between teachers and pupils. This, in turn, leads to these34

principals taking a more active role in curriculum development and in theprofessional development activities concerned with improving theeffectiveness of SCT. They are more likely to deploy resources in school toprovide additional non contact time for teachers to participate in intra- andinter-school activities. Whether by reputation or location these successful
schools attract more Hong Kong born children which results in higher
attendance at kindergarten and greater parental participation in school
activities coupled with a higher level of support for these pupils outside school,
whether it involves completing homework, undertaking educational visits orborrowing books from the library. These schools also succeed in attracting
more specialist mathematics teachers and therefore have fewer teachers with amainly Chinese initial training qualification teaching the subject. The above
factors combined seem to exert a greater influence on a school’s performance
than do the other variables considered such as class size and teaching approach.
Although there is a trend indicating that in the classes of the more successful
schools there are more sustained cognitively challenging interactions between
the teachers and individual pupils and a preference for working in pairs rather
than groups, these differences fail to reach statistical significance. The least
successful schools, in fact, succeed in having more pupils ‘on task’ but thisengagement doesn’t appear to be matched by equivalent levels of knowledge
and understanding.

10.

Relative performance of schools with high proportions of disadvantaged
pupils10.1

Within the SCT study there were 5 schools with a high proportion ofdisadvantaged students. These schools tended to have a higher proportion ofchildren born in Mainland China and as such fewer children who attended
kindergarten and lower average scores on the index of parental support. In
this section the hypothesis, often present in the literature (Finn & Achilles,
1999) that such children benefit more from placement in a small class is
examined. Cohort 1 spent 3 years in small classes so it is possible to examine
the trends in P1, P2 and P3 classes. Cohort 2 looks at the trends in P1 and P2
by way of replication.

10.2

Table 10.1 examines the differences in attainment for Cohort 1 over the 3 year
period when they were in small classes. At the beginning of P1 there were nodifferences between the disadvantaged schools and the rest of the experimental
schools (standard populations) in Chinese and mathematics but in English thepupils with disadvantaged backgrounds were significantly behind (1% level)although the effect size is small. This disadvantage was maintained in eachyear up to the end of P3. In Chinese and mathematics, pupils fromdisadvantaged backgrounds maintained parity with the rest of the experimental
sample until the end of P2. However, by the end of P3 there was tentative
evidence that the deficit shown in English had begun to spread to the othersubjects since the differences in both Chinese and mathematics are significant
at the 5% level although, again, the effect size is very small. Confirmation ofthis trend is provided by the residual gains using the total scores on all three35

subjects. In P1 the residual gain for the disadvantaged schools is -1.80 against+0.21 for the remaining schools in the sample (5% significance level, althoughwith a very small effect size). From the end of P1 to the end of P2 thecorresponding figures are -0.43 and +0.05 which is not a statisticallysignificant difference. But in the following year to the end of P3 the differenceis again significant at the 5% level. (-1.01 compared to +0.15 but with a verysmall effect size). In the P1 year there are no gender effects but by the end of
P2 girls’ performance in English in the disadvantaged schools had deteriorated
to the extent that the deficiency now has a medium effect size. In P3, girls
performance in Chinese in the disadvantaged schools was significantly belowthat of girls in the normal schools (1% significance, small effect size) whileboys in the two types of schools scored similarly. In P4 the deficiency of thedisadvantaged schools in English persisted, and as predicted from P3
mathematics scores, the disadvantaged schools had now fallen behindsignificantly. Both boys and girls showed similar trends in mathematics but
although effect sizes were small, they were higher for the girls implying a
sharper difference. The trend in Chinese evident in P3 has been reversed andscores in the two types of school are similar. Whether this has any connection
with the return to normal classes is hypothetical.
Table 10.1

Cohort 1 comparison in attainment of ‘standard’ and‘disadvantaged’ schools

Periodof testStart of
P1

Type ofschoolStandard
Disadvantaged

Chinese
Mean
s.d.
23.77
7.43
23.48
7.92

N
3417
405

EnglishMeans.d.
21.70**
8.45
20.30
8.18

N
3417
405

Mathematics
Mean
s.d.
N
20.35
7.22
3417
20.65
6.80
405

End of
P1

Standard
Disadvantaged

36.43
34.69

19.00
19.97

3385
414

52.73**
47.08

22.39
22.16

3385
417

43.69
41.70

24.62
25.84

3403
417

End of
P2

Standard
Disadvantaged

51.41
52.12

18.20
19.94

3406
483

58.29**
48.67

23.81
23.23

3420
479

53.51
52.66

20.68
20.04

3407
485

End of
P3

Standard
Disadvantaged

47.98˚
45.85

18.39
18.83

3259
470

34.05**
27.17

22.09
19.50

3245
473

59.79˚
57.42

21.47
22.85

3255
474

End of
P4

Standard
Disadvantaged

51.31
51.88

17.18
17.26

3147
454

40.83**
33.16

22.74
20.11

3161
456

51.29**
47.37

21.17
21.25

3150
458

**p<0.01; *p<0.05 small effect sizes
˚p<0.05 very small (negligible effect size)

10.3

Cohort 2 was taught in small classes up to the end of the P2 year. This allows
a partial replication of the results for Cohort 1 and the results are presented inTable 10.2. As with Cohort 1 the disadvantaged schools had a higher
proportion of mainland born children with all the attendant consequences.
However in the P1 year, although the trend in English replicates the finding
from Cohort 1, the pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds out-perform theirpeers in the remaining experimental schools on the end of year tests in both
Chinese and mathematics. Although the mean in Chinese for disadvantaged
pupils on entry is the same as that of their peers in the remaining experimental
schools at the end of P1 the former have gained a small advantage (p<0.01 butvery small effect size). In mathematics the pre-test mean of the disadvantaged
pupils is below that in the other experimental schools but by the end of P1

36

there is a significant gain (5% level) in favour of the disadvantaged schools
although the effect size is again very small. This is confirmed when theresidual gains for the combined scores are calculated. That for the
disadvantaged schools is +2.07 against a value of -0.27 for the remaining
schools in the SCT study sample (statistically significant at the 1% level but
small effect size). This difference comes about because boys in the
disadvantaged schools do exceptionally well.
10.4

By the end of P2, however, these advantages have disappeared. There are no
significant differences between the two groups of schools in Chinese andmathematics while in English the poor performance of the disadvantaged
pupils relative to their peers in the remaining schools continues. When the
combined scores are calculated the mean residual gain for the disadvantaged
schools is now -1.61 against a value of +0.232 for the remaining schools. Thischange mainly comes about because of the deterioration of the girls’
performance, thus replicating the pattern that emerged with Cohort 1. The
passage through P3 for Cohort 2 reflects the findings with Cohort 1 for
Chinese and English, but having returned to normal classes the disadvantaged
schools mathematics scores fell significantly below those of the normal
schools. It should be noted that the same effect occurred with Cohort 1 in P4,
again when classes returned to normal. However, the dip in both cohorts in the
disadvantaged schools on returning to regular classes was larger than for theother SCT schools. The inference can therefore be made that without spending
this time in small classes the gap between the disadvantaged schools and therest would have been even bigger. From this it may be concluded that smallerclasses enhance the mathematics performance in schools with high proportionsof disadvantaged pupils. The effect is more noticeable with girls although it isalso present with boys to a lesser degree.

Table 10.2

Cohort 2 comparison in attainment of ‘standard’ and‘disadvantaged’ schools

Periodof test
Start
of P1

Type ofschoolStandard
Disadvantaged

Mean
64.75
64.74

Chinese
s.d.
25.84
25.84

N
2836
375

Mean
53.66**
48.50

English
s.d.
27.51
26.37

N
2836
375

Mathematics
Mean
s.d.
N
56.25
22.22
2836
54.58
20.99
375

End of
P1

Standard
Disadvantaged

37.99
40.22˚

19.91
20.27

2829
368

52.36**
48.16

23.43
22.55

2822
388

44.64
47.49˚

24.57
23.67

2813
388

End of
P2

Standard
Disadvantaged

52.21
53.45

19.39
21.16

2672
376

53.83**
48.67

24.11
22.87

2654
374

54.18
54.40

21.72
22.48

2665
379

End of
P3

Standard
Disadvantaged

49.17
49.20

18.75
19.57

2895
458

34.65**
28.04

22.62
20.00

2902
454

60.66**
56.96

21.82
22.70

2871
459

**p<0.01 small effect size
˚p<0.05 very small effect size

10.5

Thus over the two Cohorts pupils in the disadvantaged schools initially holdtheir own or do slightly better than pupils in the remaining ‘standard’ schools
in Chinese and mathematics by the end of the P1 year, although the effectsizes are very small. By the time pupils enter the P3 year however theadvantage has moved towards the remaining experimental schools. In both37

Cohorts the small classes in the disadvantaged schools favours boys rather
than girls and it is mostly the deterioration in the latter group’s performancethat reduced the advantages gained in P1. In English, however, pupils in the
disadvantaged schools are handicapped on entry to primary school as theirinitial P1 scores are significantly below those of pupils in the remaining
schools. The position worsens as these pupils move through P2 and P3.
However, it can be reasonably argued that if these pupils from disadvantaged
schools had remained in normal size classes then the deficit in English andperhaps also in Chinese and mathematics would have been even greater. This
thesis can be tested by examining the differences in the control classes.
10.6

Examining differences within the control groups of all 37 experimental
schools does not allow the progress of the same pupils to be followed overthree years. P2 pupils in the control classes were tested in 2004/05, moved to
P3 in 2005/06 and P4 in 2006/07. P1 pupils in Cohort 3 were not tested until
2006/07 and moved to P2 in the 2007/08 school year but these pupils had apossible advantage in that some of the teachers had, by that point in time,
considerable experience of small classes in the intervening years. Hence it isdifficult to interpret result so only the P2, P3 and P4 comparisons are shown in
Table 10.3.

Table 10.3

Periodof test
Start
of P2

Type ofschoolStandard
Disadvantaged

End of
P2

Comparison of P2, P3 & P4 attainment in ‘standard’ and‘disadvantaged’ control groups

Mean
54.50
52.40

Chinese
s.d.
20.02
20.23

Mean
64.85*
58.84

English
s.d.
21.36
19.31

N
3799
443

Mathematics
Mean
s.d.
N
60.23
23.24 3829
59.94
22.57
439

N
3839
437

Standard
Disadvantaged

54.00*
50.82

18.21
19.05

3864
456

59.42**
49.31

23.44
23.31

3854
457

51.43˚
49.23

20.56
20.99

3858
453

End of
P3

Standard
Disadvantaged

46.42
45.23

17.01
17.24

3185
424

31.85**
26.32

21.07
19.32

3207
427

60.66
58.45

20.57
20.40

3262
428

End of
P4

Standard
Disadvantaged

54.90
53.26

17.67
17.97

3487
422

41.58**
34.54

23.33
21.59

3480
421

52.30
50.91

21.12
21.72

3487
50.91

**p<0.01; *p<0.05 small effect sizes
˚p<0.05 very small effect size

By the end of the P2 year the disadvantaged schools all trail the otherexperimental schools. The difference for English is greatest (1% significancelevel); that for mathematics the smallest (5% level) although because of thelarge standard deviations the effect sizes are small. By the end of P3, however,the disadvantaged schools have caught up in Chinese, have almost done thesame in mathematics but in English the position has continued to deteriorate.
As with the previous comparison with small classes it is the relatively poor
performance of girls, particularly, in mathematics that produces the results.
Disadvantaged boys, match the overall performance of their peers in theremaining schools and the difference between their scores and those of thegirls results in a large effect size. When the three scores are combined the38residual gain for the shift from P2 to P3 is +0.74 for the disadvantaged schools
against -0.11 for the remaining schools with standard populations of pupils.
10.7

By the end of P4 while both boys and girls in the disadvantaged schools
continue to score significantly below the remaining schools in English (1%level but small size effect) they maintain parity in both Chinese andmathematics, although in the latter subject girls in the disadvantaged schools
again underachieve. Partly because of this factor and the poor English
performance, when the residual gains from P3 to P4 are calculated using the
combined scores on all three subjects, the value for the disadvantaged schools
is negative (-0.83) against +0.11 for the remaining sample. Although thisdifference is statistically significant (5% level) it yields an extremely small
effect size.

10.8

The data in Table 10.3 offers an interesting contrast to the earlier comparison
involving smaller classes. Apart from English where the performance in the
disadvantaged schools continues to deteriorate more sharply in every year
irrespective of class size, the pattern appears to be asymmetrical. In normal
size classes the disadvantaged schools start with a deficit in P2 which ispresumably carried over from P1 and at the end of the year this gap in
performance has been enhanced. But by the end of the P3 year the difference
has been eliminated in Chinese for both genders and in mathematics for boys
although not for girls. In P1, English again being the exception to the rule,
small classes appear to give disadvantaged schools a better start which ismaintained into P2 but then falls away in P3. This effect can be seen by
examining the year-to-year residual gain scores. In Cohort 1 the P2 residual
gain (using the aggregated score across the three subjects) for the small classsample was -0.43 for the disadvantaged schools and +0.05 for the remainder.
In the sample of normal size classes the corresponding figures are -2.71 and+0.31 respectively. But by the end of P3 whereas the values in the smallclasses were -1.01 and +0.15 those in the normal ones were in favour of thedisadvantaged schools with values +0.74 and -0.11 respectively. Thus on thebasis of this analysis smaller classes do allow pupils in disadvantaged schools
to catch up in P1, provided the initial attainment of pupils in these schools is
not too far behind as it tends to be in English. But any advantage gained has
been lost by the end of P3 where as the earlier analysis of the TSA scores alsosuggested differences between small and normal size classes become
relatively insignificant.

10.9

A similar analysis can be carried out using the attitude and motivation
measures. In Cohort 1 these were first measured at the end of the P1 year.
Figure 10.1 shows the comparisons between the remaining 32 schools withstandard population distributions and the disadvantaged schools. While themotivation and self esteem of pupils in the disadvantaged schools was
significantly lower at the end of P1 (1% level very small effect size) the
difference had largely disappeared by the end of P2 and this was also true ofP3 (although the scale used in Figure 10.1 tends to magnify small differences).
Girls’ motivation and self esteem declined more sharply than did that of theboys. With subject attitudes only English at the end of P1 showed a significant
difference (5% level). At the end of P2 and P3, however, both Chinese and39mathematics scores were significantly lower in the disadvantaged schools
mainly due to a faster decline in boys’ dispositions. Effect sizes in all cases
were very small. Combining all four measures into a single learningorientation score yielded a residual gain from P1 to P2 of -0.03 for the
disadvantaged schools while that for the remaining schools in the SCT study
sample is zero. Between P2 and P3 the corresponding figures were -1.0
(disadvantaged) and +0.16 (remainder) which although statistically significant
at the 5% level only yields a very small effect size.
Figure 10.1 Attitudes of Cohort 1 (disadvantaged (D) v standard (S)90schools)

P1

85

P3

P2

80
% max score 75
70
65
60
Mot (D)Mot (S)

Chi (D)

Chi (S)Eng (D)Eng (S)

Math (D)10.10 For Cohort 2 data was collected from the beginning of the P1 year so thatcomparisons could be made through P1 and P2 while the pupils were in smallclasses. By the end of the P1 year English scores in the disadvantaged schools
were higher, mainly due to the boys’ contributions. Boys had the lowest
attitudes towards English at the start of P1 but had caught up by the end of theyear. By the end of P2 the trend for English has been maintained but theattitudes to Chinese have become negative in disadvantaged schools mainly
because the girls’ attitudes decreased faster than those of the boys. These
differences were all significant at the 1% level although with small effect size
coefficients in all cases. Examining the residuals using the combined learningorientation measure showed very little change overall. For the P1 year thevalue for the disadvantaged schools was -0.01 against zero for the remainder.
For the change during the P2 year the corresponding figures were -0.02 andzero respectively. Thus taking the two cohorts together the smaller classes
would appear to have a minimal effect on pupils’ motivation and self esteem
or on the attitudes to the three core subjects. When gender differences are
examined therefore the results lead to an interesting, if tentative conclusion.
Although generally boys have poorer attitudes towards English, being in asmall class in a disadvantaged school brings a slight improvement. In Chinese
disadvantaged classes, although the attitudes of boys decline, those of the girls
drop at a faster rate, which is again contrary to the usual trend. These attitude
shifts coupled with the slight improvements in boys’ attainment suggest that
small classes are benefiting these disadvantaged male pupils although in every
case the effect sizes are small.

40

Math (S)Figure 10.2 Attitudes of Cohort 2 (disadvantaged (D) v standard (S) schools)

start P1

90

end P185

end P280% max score 75
70
65
60
Mot (D)Mot (S)

Chi (D)

Chi (S)Eng (D)Eng (S)

Math (D)Math (S)11.

Performance in small classes compared to Reference Schools

11.1

The reference classes (P1, P2 and P3) were first tested in September 2006. The
date was chosen so that the initial measure, the P1 pre-test could match thetiming of the administration for the second Cohort of P1 classes whose pretest also took place in September. This however resulted in the pre-tests forboth P2 and P3 (the end of P1 and P2 tests) being out of sequence with bothcohorts in the SCT study, since these latter pupils took the post tests in theJune of each year. For attitudes, this discrepancy has little impact since it canbe demonstrated that there was almost no change in pupils’ disposition over
the three month period, June till September. For attainment however the timeinterval can be more critical. For this reason the classes tested in 2006/07 havebeen followed during the 2007/08 school year when P1 moved to P2, P2 to P3
and so forth. This means that there are two values for the end of the year P1
test, three values for the end of the P2 test, two values for the end of P3 test
and one for the end of the P4 year test. Where there are more than one set oftest scores available, the data in one case will have been collected in
September.

11.2

Three comparisons are therefore possible. The first is between the P1 classesof the reference schools and Cohort 2 to the point where the pupils reach theend of the P2 year. The second compares the move through P2 to the end of
P3 but this time scores are available for both Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 of theexperimental sample, although in P3 Cohort 2 have returned to normal sizeclasses. Finally there is the comparison between the reference schools andCohort 1 as the pupils move through P3 to P4. The results for the combined
motivation and self-esteem and subject attitude measures for the first set ofcomparisons are set out in Figure 11.1. It can readily be seen that the patterns
in each case were very similar; a slow decline from year to year. As inprevious reports attitudes to English are the poorest and those of mathematics
the strongest. None of the differences are statistically significant.

41

Figure 11.1 Attitude and motivation scores Cohort 2 v reference
schools (P1 through P2)
90
80
start P1

% max scoreend P170

end P260
Mot Mot Chi Chi Eng Eng Math Math(sct) (ref) (sct) (ref) (sct) (ref) (sct) (ref)11.3

There were however gender differences, albeit most with small or very small
effect sizes. Girls had higher motivation scores in both the reference school
and Cohort 2 classes and the same is true of Chinese. In the latter case, thesharpest falls took place over the course of the P1 year. In English girls havemore positive attitudes to the subject but now the major change (both boys andgirls) occurred during P2. As with previous comparisons mathematics had thestrongest positive attitudes of all three subjects but, nonetheless, there was asteady decline over the two years. Here girls’ scores drop off more sharply
than boys, particularly during the P2 year.

11.4

The pattern was very similar when the P2 reference classes, first tested in
September 2006 were compared with a combined Cohort 1 and 2 small classsample having first ascertained that the scores in the two cohorts did not differ
significantly. These results are shown in Figure 11.2. Across the various
measures, the fact that pupils in the reference classes took the P2 pre-test (theend of P1 test) in September and not, as was the case for the small classes, inJune means that the initial scores of the reference classes were a little below
those in the combined experimental sample. The biggest difference was inEnglish which actually reached the 1% (small effect size) significance level.
By the end of P2 and again at the end of P3 the differences between the two
samples were negligible. Girls again scored higher on the combined self
esteem and motivation scale, in Chinese and English but not in mathematics.
In the latter subject, the scores of boys from Cohort 1, who remained in smallclasses, were significantly higher (1% level) than either their peers in thereference classes or those in Cohort 2 who had returned to normal size classes,
although the effect size was very small.

42

Figure 11.2 Attitude and motivation scores Cohort 1 & 2 v
reference schools (P2 through P3)
9080
end P1end P2% max score70

end P360
Mot Mot Chi Chi Eng Eng Math Math(sct) (ref) (sct) (ref) (sct) (ref) (sct) (ref)11.5

The third comparison traces the P3 reference classes who took the end of P2
test in September 2006 as they move through P4. These classes are contrasted
with small classes in Cohort 1 who also moved back to normal size classes in
the 2007/08 school year. The results are shown in Figure 11.3. Apart from thefact that due to the later administration the P3 pre-test scores (end of P2 test)of the reference schools tend to be lower than those of their peers in Cohort 1
the overall pattern is very similar to that in the previous two figures. Girls
maintain their superiority over boys in motivation and self esteem. In Chinese,
although girls outscored boys, the gap closed in P4 where the dip in attitude
over the year was sharper for girls while the boy’s scores underwent littlechange over the course of the year. Returning to a normal class would appear
more unsettling for girls although the effect size is again very small. English isagain the least liked of the three subjects. By the time Cohort 1 move back tonormal classes in P4 there were no differences between these pupils and thereference group. Girls again scored higher than the boys on each test
administration.

11.6

Attitudes to mathematics remain steady over P3 but drop in P4 so that thereference group and the pupils from Cohort 1 have almost identical scores by
the end of the fourth year. On returning to normal classes in P4 the Cohort 1
girls’ decline was such that there was a significant difference (1% level)
between their scores and those of their male peers. In summary, therefore,
these results when taken together suggest that being in a smaller class has very
little effect on pupils’ motivation, self esteem or their attitudes towards
Chinese, English and mathematics. Not only with year to year comparisons
was there little difference between the experimental samples and the reference
schools, but the advantage of being in a small class for two or three years had
little impact on mathematics attitudes on the return to normal sized classes in
P4 since by the end of that year the respective scores of the two groups ofschools were practically identical in every case.

43

Figure 11.3 Attitude and motivation scores Cohort 1 v
reference schools (P3 through P4)

9080% max score70

end P2end P3end P460
50
Mot Mot Chi Chi Eng Eng Math Math(sct) (ref) (sct) (ref) (sct) (ref) (sct) (ref)11.7

The overall trend, including gender effects, can be illustrated through use of
the combined learning disposition score (an aggregated score from all four
attitude and motivation measures). In several cases more than one score wasavailable (e.g. two end of P2 scores in the reference groups from different
samples) and these were also averaged. The gender variations come throughclearly with girls having more positive dispositions on entry and in eachsuccessive year. Any small differences between the reference classes andthose in the experimental classes have disappeared by the time pupils arecompleting P4. Overall, attitudes have declined from a high starting point byaround 20 percentage points over the four years of the study.

% maximum score

Figure 11.4 Boys' and Girls' Learning Disposition(at entry to end of P4)
90
Boy (ref)Boy (sct)
Girl (ref)Girl (sct)

80
70
60
Entry

P1

P2

P3

44

P4

11.8

There are a number of other factors which have the potential to influence
attitudes. In the phase covering entry to primary school up to the end of P2,
neither the birthplace of the pupils (Mainland born v Hong Kong born), theirattendance at kindergarten, nor their identification as pupils with SEN
influences attitudes in both reference school and experimental classes.
However, in the move from P2 to P3 overall learning disposition does
correlate with some of the above variables. Mainland born pupils, placed insmaller classes score higher than their peers in the reference schools. Even
when some of these pupils move back to normal class in P3 they maintain thispositive disposition (1% significance level; small effect size). Kindergarten
exerts little effect but SEN pupils who remain in small classes during the P3year have a better learning disposition. In the move from P3 to P4 neither
place of birth nor attendance at kindergarten influences pupils’ attitudes.
Furthermore, the SEN pupils of Cohort 1, when they move back to normalclasses in P4 appear to lose out, since their scores on the learning disposition
scale no longer differ from the equivalent group of pupils in the referencegroup. The analysis suggests, therefore, that smaller classes do result in morepositive attitudes among pupils who have been identified with SEN.

11.9

An equivalent analysis can also be conducted using the scores on theattainment tests. From the point of entry to the end of P2 the straightforward
comparison is between the reference schools and Cohort 2. The various meanscores for boys and girls are shown in Table 11.1. In both samples the patterns
are remarkably similar. For all three subjects, the start of P1 scores, taken in
mid September, are higher for the reference schools for both boys and girls. In
Chinese the girls outscore the boys in every year in both reference schools andin Cohort 2 (p<0.01). In English the reference schools display the same pattern
but in Cohort 2 the initial scores of both boys and girls are equal, although by
the end of P1 and again by the end of P2 girls’ scores are significantly higher(1% level). In all cases the effect sizes are relatively small but increase overtime.

Table 11.1
SampleChineseCohort 2
Reference
Cohort 2
Reference
EnglishCohort 2
Reference
Cohort 2
Reference
Maths
Cohort 2
Reference
Cohort 2
Reference

Comparison of Attainment: P1 to P2 (Reference v Cohort 2)
GenderStart of P1
Mean
s.d.

End of P1
Mean
s.d.

End of P2
Mean
s.d.

N

Boys

63.09
67.65
68.59
71.79

25.74
24.66
24.50
24.09

34.46
37.35
41.89
42.87

19.64
19.75
19.65
20.11

49.50
53.45
56.31
59.16

20.00
19.45
18.27
18.15

1560
1224
1244
1068

52.87
58.34
55.09
62.56

27.50
27.05
26.74
25.08

50.44
50.73
55.64
58.24

23.47
23.79
22.01
22.35

49.55
54.39
58.34
64.23

24.48
25.00
22.09
22.11

1569
1233
1236
1066

56.31
61.51
56.94
61.59

22.05
21.94
21.60
20.85

45.56
47.75
45.54
48.82

25.24
27.01
22.72
24.29

55.46
59.02
53.03
57.16

22.96
22.67
20.12
20.20

1592
1234
1259
1089

Girls

Boys
Girls

Boys
Girls

45

11.10 Mathematics shows a different pattern. In both the reference schools andCohort 2 there are no significant differences between the boys’ and the girls’
scores at the start and end of P1. By the end of P2, however boys are doing
better in both samples (1% level: small effect size). Comparing the two
samples shows that in all three subjects reference schools tend to maintaintheir initial advantage suggesting that it is the difference in the initial samples
rather than variables such as the size of the class that accounts for thisvariation. This interpretation is confirmed when the residual gains of the
combined scores are calculated using the start of P1 scores to predict the endof P2 attainment. For boys in Cohort 2 the value of the residual is -1.473 while
the figure for the reference group comes to -0.682. The corresponding figures
for girls are 0.857 and 1.936 respectively. None of these differences are
statistically significant supporting the view that the move to small classes has
little effect in comparison to the initial differences between pupils on entry to
primary school.
11.11 The source of these initial differences can be partially identified by exploring
the data obtained from the Parents’ Questionnaire. In the Reference schools
15% of the intake were mainland born compared to 20.5% in Cohort 2. Only
3.8 of pupils in the Reference schools had not attended a kindergarten while in
Cohort 2 the figure was 6.9%. Again the Reference Schools with only 11.2%
of SEN pupils have an advantage over schools in Cohort 2 where theproportion of SEN pupils was 17%.
11.12 In both samples the Hong Kong born pupils have poorer scores on entry but
whereas this discrepancy is also found in P2 in the Reference school sample
mainland pupils in Cohort 2 have caught up by the end of the P2 year. Lack ofkindergarten experience again results in lower initial scores. Here althoughthese pupils catch up by the end of P2, irrespective of whether they belong to
the Reference group or Cohort 2 the improvement of the latter pupils is greater
because they start for an initial lower base. This can be seen in the residual
gain scores from the start of P1 to the end of P2. For the reference schools thevalue is 2.829 while for Cohort 2 it is 4.620.
11.13 For the comparison of scorers from the start of P2 till the end of P3 the timingof the testing was the same for both Cohorts 1 and 2 but for the referencegroup the end of P1 test was administered in September and not June and insome cases the tests were administered in different years. A further difference
was that in P3 Cohort 2 pupils had returned to normal classes. The data is set
out in Table 11.2. Mean values and numbers of pupils in Cohort 2 may differ
slightly from those in Table 11.1 as not all pupils with scores in P2 also had ascore in P3 either because they may have moved away from theneighbourhood during the intervening year or were away at the time of testing.
The differences however are relatively slight and have little impact on theoverall analysis. For Chinese girls outperform boys in both P2 and P3 in all
three samples. Notwithstanding their higher score on the end of P1 test
because it was taken in September and not June, the reference group continues
to outperform both Cohort 1 and 2 on subsequent tests (p<0.01, small effectsize). The differences are greatest when the comparison is with Cohort 1.
46

Cohort 2 has a higher mean score at the end of the P1 year than Cohort 2(p<0.01, small effect size) and this difference is maintained up to the end of
P3 although the effect size is negligible. Being in a small class for three rather
than two years appears, therefore, to bring little benefit.
Table 11.2
SampleChineseCohort1
Cohort 2
Reference
Cohort 1
Cohort 2
Reference
EnglishCohort 1
Cohort 2
Reference
Cohort 1
Cohort 2
Reference
Maths
Cohort 1
Cohort 2
Reference
Cohort 1
Cohort 2
Reference

Comparison of Attainment: P2 to P3 (Reference v Cohorts 1 & 2)
GenderEnd of
Mean

P1
s.d.

End of P2
Mean
s.d.

End of P3
Mean
s.d.

N

Boys

34.23
37.07
40.53
39.58
41.98
47.15

18.27
19.54
19.50
19.48
19.57
20.07

48.54
50.24
51.85
55.68
56.38
59.02

18.15
19.71
19.31
17.62
18.30
18.03

44.70
46.98
48.54
51.84
52.67
55.54

18.44
19.01
19.11
17.68
17.72
17.72

1721
1524
1194
1565
1201
1151

49.66
50.63
52.10
55.80
55.66
58.42

22.46
23.34
23.62
21.39
22.09
22.09

53.82
50.07
50.54
63.52
58.51
59.83

24.28
24.21
24.91
21.58
21.95
22.09

29.31
30.87
31.95
39.41
39.15
40.87

21.10
22.05
23.83
21.77
21.63
23.31

1745
1537
1195
1554
1189
1150

43.52
46.34
51.65
44.76
45.91
53.79

25.36
25.19
25.28
23.51
22.57
23.26

54.28
56.13
56.82
52.59
53.31
56.57

21.76
22.52
22.51
19.65
19.76
20.12

60.05
61.05
60.83
59.59
59.43
61.66

22.46
22.51
22.28
20.37
20.41
20.54

1739
1546
1188
1568
1206
1143

Girls

Boys

Girls

Boys

Girls

11.14 In English girls again always obtain higher scores than boys in all threesamples (significance level 1% but small effect sizes).
Attainment
differences at the end of P1 favour the Reference group (because of later
testing) but by the end of the P2 year it is Cohort 1 pupils that are ahead. But
this advantage is not maintained in P3 so that the additional year in the smallclass appears to offer no significant advantage. In mathematics, as in previous
comparisons, gender effects are less pronounced. There are significant
differences (1% level) for boys in P2 (Cohort 1 and Cohort 2) and in P3(Cohort 2) but the effect size is very small in each case. Both Cohorts 1 and 2
are behind the reference group at the end of P1 and P2 but have caught up at
the end of P3. Moving back to a normal class in P3 appears to have no
noticeable effect on Cohort 2’s performance.
11.15 When the results are broken down by place of birth and attendance atkindergarten there are few significant results. Smaller classes tend to reducethe differential between Hong Kong born and Mainland born children but havelittle noticeable effect on improving the scores of pupils who did not have an

47

opportunity to attend kindergarten. This suggests that home background is themore important of these contextual variables.
11.16 The final comparison is between the Reference group and Cohort 1 when
pupils move from P3 to P4. Here again the timing of the end of P2 testing
differed, that for the Reference school pupils taking place in mid September
while Cohort 1 were tested in June. Table 11.3 displays the data. Again, in
Chinese, the pattern whereby girls outperform boys is continued into P4
irrespective of whether the pupils belong to the reference group or to Cohort 1.
As expected the reference group scores at the end of P2 are higher for bothgenders (due to the later administration of the test) but by the end of P3 girls’
scores do not differ significantly (5% for boys in favour of reference group but
negligible effect size). However, in P4 when all the pupils are in normalclasses the Reference group regains the advantage (1% level; small effect size
both genders).
Table 11.3
SampleComparison of Attainment: P3 to P4 (Reference v Cohort 1)
GenderEnd of P2
Mean
s.d.

End of P3
Mean
s.d.

End of P4
Mean
s.d.

ChineseCohort 1
Boys
48.65 18.17 44.69 18.40 47.49 17.42
Reference
51.97 17.79 46.39 18.78 50.42 17.56
Cohort 1
Girls
55.47 17.42 51.62 17.67 55.72 15.85
Reference
58.92 17.01 52.77 17.54 57.91 16.10
EnglishCohort 1
Boys
53.08 24.24 28.73 20.90 34.62 22.11
Reference
55.78 24.22 31.74 22.91 37.99 23.36
Cohort 1
Girls
62.58 21.75 38.58 21.74 45.84 21.56
Reference
65.57 21.75 42.00 23.53 48.43 22.20
Maths
Cohort 1
Boys
54.22 21.66 59.72 22.57 50.78 22.29
Reference
57.86 21.21 62.18 22.17 54.73 21.20
Cohort 1
Girls
53.05 19.29 59.80 20.08 51.16 19.80
Reference
56.45 19.91 62.49 20.28 54.27 20.33
Aggregated attainment (combined Chinese, English and mathematics scores)
Cohort 1
Boys
52.58 18,69 44.64 17.99 44.62 18.22
Reference
55.35 18.71 46.99 18.90 47.83 18.45
Cohort 1
Girls
57.28 16.84 50.24 17.39 51.12 16.62
Reference
60.37 17.09 52.40 18.01 53.63 17.18

N

1803
1186
1645
1137
1819
1181
1640
1138
1818
1165
1643
1128
1661
1085
1539
1053

11.17 In English the Reference group not only outperforms Cohort 1 (both genders)on the end of P2 (as expected) but continues to do so at the end of P3 and P4.
In all cases the effect sizes are very small and again the move back to normal
size classes in P4 has a negligible effect on Cohort 1 scores. In mathematics
there is only one gender difference and that is for the end of P2 testing in
Cohort 1. Although as with the languages, the Reference group has higher endof P1 scores because of the delay in administration Cohort 1 has caught up by
the end of P3. However, once the Cohort 1 pupils move to normal classes in48

P4 the Reference group open up the gap again (1% significance level; small tovery small effect size). Thus the inference is that being in a small class in P3
does have some benefit but that this does not carry over once the pupils returnto the normal classes in P4. This can perhaps be seen more easily when theaggregated attainment scores are examined. In P3 Cohort 1 has lowered thegap between both boys and girls scores but by P4 the reference group hasregained its advantage. While therefore being in a small class in P3 appears to
bestow some advantage there exists also the possibility that another reason for
the improvement lies in the extended efforts being made to achieve success in
the TSA examinations.
11.18 Although being in a small class appeared to benefit pupils when they were in
P1 and to a certain extent P2 it is being a Hong Kong born pupil that now
reappears in P3 and P4 as a significant variable (1% level; small effect size).
The effect of having attended kindergarten cannot be ascertained since thisquestion was not included on the Parent questionnaire when it was given to theparents of P1 pupils. Being in a small class in P3 appears to give a slightadvantage to SEN pupils since they reduce the gap that previously existed withsimilar pupils in the reference group at the end of the P2 year, but again theeffect sizes are extremely small.
11.19 In Table 11. 4 residual gains, calculated using the aggregated scores, are usedin support of the above findings. In all cases the girls’ residuals are positive,
the boys are negative except when end of P3 scores are used to predict end of
P4 attainment. This marks the point in time when Cohort 1 returns to normalclasses and both boys and girls in the reference groups make greater progress.
Clearly, having been in a small class for three years does not carry an
advantage on return to normal classes in P4. As demonstrated previously (para11.17) when pupils move to P3, experimental classes retain a slight advantage
but when the end of P2 scores are used to predict P4 attainment boys and girls
in the reference schools both outperform their peers in the experimental
sample. This supports the view that any advantage of being in a small classinitially declines from year to year. The differences between the experimental
and reference classes for boys and the end of year P2 to the end of P3 scoresfor girls are statistically significant (1% level) in favour of the experimental
classes but the effect sizes are extremely small and indicate no practicaldifference.
Table 11.4

Residual gains in the Experimental and Reference classes(aggregated scores)

SampleGender

P2 to P3
Means.d.

P2 to P4
Means.d.

P3 toP4
Means.d.

Experimental
Reference
Experimental
ReferenceBoys-0.258-0.8960.872
0.145-0.941-0.1600.597
0.776-1.098
0.040
0.508
1.051

Girls

8.77
9.11
8.51
8.49

7.64
7.97
7.06
7.20

Gender effects significant at 1% level in all cases (very small effect sizes)

49

8.20
8.81
7.75
7.69

11.20 For all three comparisons (P1 to P2; P2 to P3 and P3 to P4) regression analysis
was also employed to determine the magnitude of various effects using the
combined aggregated scores. Pupil data for each of the participating schools(experimental and reference) was entered into a regression analysis in attempt
to assess the contribution to end of P2, P3 and P4 aggregated attainment of thefollowing variables: gender, school attended, parental support, being in a small
or normal class, being classified as SEN, learning orientation, and,successively, aggregated attainment either at the start of P1, P2 or P3 asappropriate. Two regression equations were constructed. The first used a
simple linear regression model while the second adopted a multilevel approachwith pupil characteristics as the first and schools as the second level variable.
11.21 From the start of P1 to the end of P2 the initial attainment accounted for
42.4% of the total explained variance. Being classified as SEN reduced apupil’s score (unstandardised regression coefficient = -9.59) and accounted fora further 3% in variation. Parental support then contributed a further 2%. 17 of
the schools contributed a further 4.2% to the total variation but being in asmall class did not feature. Having a positive orientation to learning and beinga girl jointly contribute a further 0.5% to the total variation. Of the 4 schools
making a significant negative contribution to the end of P2 score 3 were fromthe reference schools. Thirteen schools made a positive contribution of which
7 came from the experimental sample. When the analysis was repeated, thistime using a multi-level regression model to estimate the contribution ofschools to the overall equation then the variation attributable to the various
pupil contributions was 162.0 (standard error 4.23) and that for schools 12.47(standard error 3.14). Thus some 8% of the observed pupil performance can be
attributed to differences between schools while the major contributions remainthat of initial attainment, attendance at kindergarten and parental support
followed to a lesser degree by the learning orientation at the end of P2 andbeing a girl pupil. The multilevel analysis therefore confirms the findings ofthe simple regression model. In so far that it has been shown that school
differences are always larger than those between the small and normal classsamples, it would appear that the variation between schools can mainly be
attributed to difference in intake.
11.22 A similar analysis was conducted tracing pupil progress from the beginning of
P2 to the end of P3. The simple linear aggression shows that the strongest
variable accounting for the end of P3 attainment is the end of P1 score which
accounts for 64.3% of the total explained variation. Being in a small classes orplace of birth makes no significant contribution to the P3 score, while beingclassified as SEN, parental contribution and the end of P3 orientation tolearning scores contributes a further 1.4%, 0.9% and 0.4%, respectively, to the
explained variation. Twenty-seven schools make a significant contribution tosimple regression equation predicting the end of P3 attainment. Of these, 15
make a positive contribution and 12 of these are experimental schools. Of the
12 negative contributions 6 belong to experimental sample. If instead of end of
P1 score the end of P2 score is used as the predictor of P3 attainment then thisvariable alone accounts for 75.9% of the explained variation leaving little
remaining variance to distribute between the other variables. There are small
but positive associations with parental support and overall attitudes but being50

in a small P3 class makes a negative contribution of 1.43% to end of year
attainment score. When the multi-level model is employed, again using end of
P1 attainment as the predictor, the pupil contribution to the total variation is95.77 (standard error 1.84) while schools account for 8.10 (standard error
1.78). Thus around 8% of pupil performance at the end of P3 can be attributed
to differences between schools.
11.23 The third analysis examines the variables associated with the end of P4 testscores. Using the linear regression model it appears that the end of P2
attainment accounts for 75% of the total variation. The fact that the reference
schools didn’t take the test until mid September after beginning the P3 year
probably contributes to the magnitude of this effect. Other factors such as endof P4 learning orientation and being a girl contribute approximately a further
1% to the explained variance. 20 of the schools then contribute a further 1%(half positively and half negatively). Four of the 10 positive contributions and
8 of the negative ones come from schools in the experimental sample. Now,
however, neither attendance in a small class, parental support or place of birthcontributes. If the analysis is repeated this time using the end of P3 scores as
the predictor of P4 attainment then the effect of moving back to normal classes
in Cohort 1 can be studied. Now, the end of P3 scores contributes 79% of
the variance. Moving from the small to the normal class causes the
combined score of pupils to fall by about 1.9% so that pupils’ experience of
three years of SCT does not provide a sustained advantage. When multilevel
regression analysis is performed using end of P2 scores to predict P4
attainment then the pupil contribution to the total variation is 72.70 (standard
error 1.69) while the schools effect contributes 3.49 (standard error 0.90).
Thus some 4% of pupils’ performance at the end of P4 can be attributed toschool differences.
11.24 In summary, the picture that emerges from these regression analyses is that thepupils’ initial ability at intake is a major determinant of pupils’ progress andthis is influenced by various factors such as place of birth, parent support andattendance at kindergarten. Thus differences in post –test attainment between
schools are largely explained by difference in their intake of pupils. Being in asmall class does not have a significant effect but moving back to a normalclass has a negative influence. As pupils move from P1 to P4 the contribution
made by schools diminishes and the pre-test measure accounts for an
increased proportion of variation in the pupils’ post test scores. Starting withthe start of P1 year scores it was found that these accounted for 42.4% of thevariation in the scores at the end of P2. When this end of P2 score was used to
predict attainment at the end of P3 the corresponding figure was 75.9% andwhen this P3 score was used to predict end of P4 scores it accounted for 79%
of the explained variance. However a degree of caution needs to be employedwhen interpreting these results. First the data from the reference schools
comes from different samples of pupils. Second the timing of the pre-test
varied so that in some cases the scores of the pupils in the experimental
sample were collected some three months before those of the reference
schools. Nevertheless, the main conclusion to emerge would appear to be thatirrespective of whether pupils are in large or small classes the main factor
contributing to progress is the quality of the teaching. What matters most in51

determining the score that a pupil achieves at the end of any year is the scorethat pupil achieved at the end of the previous year and this must be attributed,
at least in part, to the degree of expertise possessed by different teachers.

12.

Reviewing the results of the SCT Study (2004-2008)

12.1

At the conclusion of the SCT study it would seem appropriate to attempt someoverall synthesis of the results that have been gathered over four school years,
particularly those that measure pupils’ attainment. Since its inception, thestudy has had to cope continually with problems which arose from the initialresearch design. Ideally, from a research perspective to compare small andlarge classes would have required two samples; one with large and one withsmall classes. Schools allotted small classes would have been chosen at
random with some initial stratification to take account of key variables such as
proportion of disadvantaged pupils, the band level etc. Pupils would then havetested on entry to P1 in the September and then again in June at the end ofeach year up to the completion of P4.

12.2

In practice aided and government schools were invited to apply forparticipation in the Study via a circular memorandum dated 14 May 2004. The
selection criteria were: (a) schools’ readiness in trying out SCT, based on theirknowledge and experience in curriculum development, participation inteaching pedagogy related initiatives/projects, teachers’ commitment, etc.; (b)prospect of stable and adequate P1 intake throughout the period of the Study,and (c) availability of classrooms to accommodate the additional classes.
The circular memorandum also indicated that in the event the number ofschools which satisfied the above criteria exceeded the quota of 40, priority
would be given to schools which had a sizable number of students who werein need of stronger school support. Since the number of eligible schools fell
short of the target number, it was not necessary to apply this additional
criterion.

12.3

Given the circumstances stated in para 12.2, a compromise design was
therefore employed whereby the small and the control classes came from thesame schools all of whom volunteered to participate. This decision gave rise to
several important limitations. First it meant that the equivalent classes fromthe experimental and control cohorts had to be tested in different years. Thus
P1 small classes were tested in 2004/05 (Cohort 1) and 2005/06 (Cohort 2) but
P1 controls (Cohort 3) were not tested until 2006/07. Second, only Cohort 1
pupils could be followed up to the end of P4 without extending the study. To
make comparisons, therefore, required different samples of pupils to provide
controls in P1, P2, P3 and P4. The P2 normal classes could then be followed
through P3 up to the end of P4 while pupils from Cohort 3 could be followed
up to the end of P2.

12.4

This would have mattered less if the subsequent scores used as post-tests
could have been adjusted for intake. But since the tests had to be created at thesame time that the study began it was only possible to test Cohort 1 smallclasses in October 2004 and the P2 and P3 control classes in December 2004.
It was not until the 2006/07 school year that a straightforward comparison of52

performance in P1 classes could be made over the same time interval (Cohort
2 v Cohort 3). When this was done it was in the small classes that the pupils
made greater academic progress although the effect size was in every casesmall. Irrespective of whether the pupil was a boy or a girl or the nature of
the subject (except mathematics for girls) pupils in the small classes did better
than those from the controls.
12.5

When the various comparisons were undertaken in the P2, P3 and P4 classes
the advantages of the Cohort 2 small classes in P1 appeared to decrease overtime. The fact that the P1 gains were not replicated in Cohort 1 restricts thedegree of confidence that can be placed in this finding, although it isreasonable to assume that the schools and P1 teachers in the 2004/05 school
year would still have been adjusting to the changed circumstances andtherefore less likely to have been able to take full advantage of the class size
reductions. However, a significant difference between the small classes andthose in the control group emerged when the effects across different ability
bands was examined. It appeared that teachers in small classes were able toimprove the performance of pupils more evenly while in some cases teachers
in the larger classes improve overall performance by boosting that of the moreable pupils at the expense of the children in the bottom third of the class. In allcases although these differences were statistically significant they again gave
rise to only very small effect sizes; the equivalent to one to two months
additional schooling. However, such results were confounded in that in somecases the same teachers taught the small and normal classes.

12.6

Mainly for this latter reason an additional group of ‘reference schools’ wereadded. Again, however, there were problems in the timing of testing and thefact that three different samples of pupils representing P1, P2 and P3 had to be
used in order to follow their progress in the subsequent year. The decision to
conduct the pre-test in September at the beginning of the school year was thelogical one but again this meant that in some cases, when comparing P2 or P3
classes, the pre-test (end of P1 or P2 test) had been administered to the smallclass pupils in the previous June.

12.7

In seeking to carry out a review of these results over the four year period two
approaches can be taken. First, only the results where the comparisons are
across similar time intervals could be used. The disadvantage of proceeding inthis way is that it would eliminate some results. The second approach is toconsider all the results obtained at the end of each school year and to attempt
to estimate the effect of administering the test at different points in time. Table
12.1 sets out the means and standard deviations for the various test
administrations from the end of P2 until the end of P3. Dates in italics indicate
the move back to normal classes.

53

Table 12.1

Means and standard deviations for the test administrations (P1 to P3)

End of P1

End of P2

End of P3

Date
CHINESE

Mean

s.d.

N

Date

Mean

s.d.

N

Date

Mean

s.d.

N

June 05
June 06

36.39
38.26

19.03
19.97

3684
3217

June 06
June 07

51.50
52.37

18.42
19.55

3889
3282

June 07

47.62

18.40

3974

Dec 04

54.28
35.04
36.56

20.05

4276

Dec 04

17.32

4541

19.75

3395

16.19
17.04
18.86

4613
3844
3353

2713

4320
3389
2717

43.97
46.23
49.17

20.13

18.33
19.82
18.00

June 05
June 06
June 08

42.95
37.81
39.08

June 05
June 08
Sept 06

June 07
June 08

49.42
51.96

18.59
18.86

2686
2516

19.97

2656

June 07
June 08

62.82
52.90
53.67
52.97
55.04
54.02
54.25
55.90

19.20
19.22

2676
2505

52.44
51.85

22.37
23.36

3699
3210

June 06
June 07

57.11
53.01

23.95
24.03

3899
3261

June 07

32.69

21.84

3963

64.23
51.43
51.89

21.23

4242

Dec 04

22.27

4565

22.94

3369

19.31
20.91
22.39

4615
3866
3356

2713

4311
3405
2710

28.49
30.99
33.76

23.30

23.63
24.62
23.64

June 05
June 06
June 08

54.77
52.37
53.59

June 05
June 08
Sept 06

June 07
June 08

36.21
35.97

23.65
23.92

2692
2522

23.51

2668

June 07
June 08

68.04
57.29
58.35
54.47
60.26
57.58
54.04
58.61

24.26
24.24

2667
2507

24.71
24.48

3702
3201

June 06
June 07

53.40
54.46

20.86
21.80

3892
3275

June 07

59.58

21.73

3973

23.17

4268

Dec 04

20.30

4578

25.68

3354

4311
3406
2717

58.53
60.42
60.15

21.31
20.57
21.98

4607
3925
3330

2715

20.62
22.49
20.79

June 05
June 06
June 08

24.44

June 05
June 08
Sept 06

June 07
June 08

61.52
61.27

21.58
21.47

2689
2508

25.74

2667

57.80
54.54
51.20
55.21
56.36
54.89
56.10
57.81

21.61
21.63

2660
2500

E
X
P
N
O
R
M
R
E
F

June 07
Sept 06
June 07

ENGLISHE June 05
X June 06
P
N Dec 04
O
R June 07
M
R Sept 06
E
F June 07

MATHEMATICS
E June 05 43.68
X June 06 44.98
P
N Dec 04 60.20
O
44.21
R June 07 44.40
M
R Sept 06 52.07
E
45.82
June
07
44.76
F

12.8

June 07
June 08

The first step in the analysis was to calculate the average percentage gains that
resulted in taking the tests in September and December respectively. This wasdone by calculating the percentage differences in each case and then taking an
average across the three subjects. For the end of P1 scores taking the test in
September added approximately 12% to the average June score and taking thetest in December a further 23.5%.
For the end of P2 scores thecorresponding figures were 4.4% and 11.4% respectively. The figures in boldin Table 12.1 represent the adjusted scores.

54

12.9

The standard deviations in Table 12.1 were then pooled to give a standard
error of approximately 0.50. To reach statistical significance at the 5% levelany difference between pairs of means in the table should therefore be greaterthan 1.96 while a value greater than 2.58 would indicate the a result which wassignificant at the 1% level. Examining differences between Cohort 1 andCohort 2 at the end of P1 and P2 shows only one significant difference; that inEnglish at the end of P2. At the end of P3, when Cohort 2 returned to normalclasses, there are no significant differences with Cohort 1 across any of thesubjects. For the comparisons with the control and reference classes there are
no clear trends. In so far as significant differences do occur they appear torepresent random fluctuations possibly due either to variations in the intake to
P1 or, more likely because of the quality of teaching. In every case, all of thesignificant differences between pairs of means result in extremely small effectsizes.

12.10 There are also three end of P4 comparisons. The P2 control classes of
2004/05 took the end of P4 test in June 2007 while, Cohort 1 having returned
to normal classes, together with the reference classes took the same test inJune 2008. In Chinese the means were 54.72 (control) 51.42 (Cohort 1) and
54.04 (reference group). The score of Cohort 1 pupils is significantly lower
than that of both other samples (1% level but very small effect size). Moving
back to normal classes in P4 appears to have a negative effect. In English thecorresponding means were 40.11 (control) 38.35 (Cohort 1) and 42.75(reference group) respectively. Here, although the trend is similar to that for
Chinese only the performance of pupils in the reference group is significant(1% level; small effect size). In mathematics, however, Cohort 1 pupils do
outscore the control sample (52.26 against 50.88) although the result is notstatistically significant. The pupils in the reference group do even better with amean of 54.39. This is a significant improvement over Cohort 1 pupils’
performance (5%) and of control pupils (1%) although again these are only
small effect sizes.
12.11 Confirmation of these trends can be seen in Table 12.2 where the end of P3
scores are used to predict the P4 score. It can be seen that in every case,
Cohort 1 does less well than expected in comparison to the control group fromthe same schools (Chinese and English) and compared to the reference groupin mathematics, although the magnitude of the differences in the latter subject
are not as great as is the case of the two languages. The return of Cohort 1 tonormal classes, having spent the previous three years in small ones, appears
therefore to have retarded rather than enhanced pupils’ progress.
Table 12.2

End of P3 to end of P4 residual gains for each subject

SampleChinese
Mean
s.d.

N

English
Mean
s.d.

N

Mathematics
Mean
s.d.
N

Cohort 1 -1.892 11.31 3754 -1.285 12.56 3757 -0.849 12.82 3758
Control
2.34** 11.63 3624 1.995** 13.58 3638 0.394 12.96 3676
Reference -0.583 11.72 2365 -1.030 12.79 2363 0.747** 13.04 2333**p<0.01; small to very small effect size55

12.12 It has previously been shown that compared to Cohort 3 and the referencegroup pupils in small classes in Cohort 2 did better on all three attainment
tests at the end of P1. In the 2007/08 school year, Cohort 3 and the P1
reference class have both been followed into P2. It is thus possible todetermine whether the progress made by Cohort 2 pupils in P1 continues in
the following year. The residual gains for the three samples (Cohort 2, Cohort
3 and reference group) are shown in Table 12.3. In each case pupils in Cohort
2 small classes do less well than expected at the end of P2 when compared topupils in normal classes. Thus the advantage gained by Cohort 2 at the end of
P1 is eroded in the following year.
Table 12.3

Start of P1 to end of P2 residual gains for each subject
Chineses.d.

Sample
Mean

N

Mean

Cohort 2-1.219 13.0 280 -1.339
Cohort 30.305
12.9 301 -0.713
Reference 1.090* 13.2 229 1.860***p<0.01; small to very small effect size

Englishs.d.

NMathematics
Mean
s.d.
N

16.7
17.0
16.9

280
300
229

-0.7950.210
0.706*

14.2
14.6
14.1

2851
2998
2323

12.13 It is also possible to deduce the effect on pupils in Cohort 2 when they moveback to normal classes by using end of P2 scores to predict the P3 results. This
time there are four comparison groups. The control class who took the end of
P2 test in June 2005, Cohort 1 who took it in June 2006, Cohort 2 who took itin the June of the following year (2007) and the reference group who also took
it in the same year. The residual gains for each subject are shown in Table
12.4. Here the results illustrate the difficulty of providing straightforward
answers to some of the questions posed at the start of this report given thecomplexity of the research design. Compared to Cohort 3 pupils in the smallclasses appeared to regress during the P2 year. However when the comparison
involves different samples the situation of pupils in Cohort 2 appears to have
improved during the P3 year. In both languages pupils in Cohort 2, on
returning to a large class make significant progress (1% level) compared to thepupils in the control groups and Cohort 1. In mathematics, however, Cohort 2
pupils make significantly less progress (1% level) that might have been
predicted from their P3 score in comparison with the control group and thereference group has the lowest mean residual gain. Thus there is no overall
consistency suggesting, once again, that what matters more than the size of theclass is the expertise and experience of the teacher.
Table 12.4

End of P2 to end of P3 residual gains for each subject

SampleChinese
Mean
s.d.
0.433
1.164
-2.6921.880*

Cohort 1
Cohort 2
Control
Reference

12.0
12.3
11.3
12.3

N

English
Mean
s.d.

N

Mathematics
Mean
s.d.
N

364
299
354
238

-0.842
2.927-4.1153.755*

364
302
356
238

-0.405-0.8661.980*-1.320

13.9
14.0
14.2
14.3

**p<0.01; small to very small effect size

56

13.5
13.1
12.5
13.4

3457
2868
3181
2366

12.14 A simple regression analysis was also undertaken using aggregated scores
across the three subjects to predict the end of P2 scores. The predictive
variables included the start and end of P1 scores, pupil gender, SEN
classification, learning orientation at the end of P2, class membership (small
or normal) and school. The strongest influence on end of P2 attainment was
found to be the end of P1 scores. These accounted for 67.4% of the total
variance explained by the regression equation. Scores on the P1 pre-test on
entry to primary school contribute another 3.7%. Being classified SEN(unstandardised regression coefficient -6.24) lowers end of P2 score while endof P2 orientation to learning and being a girl (regression coefficients 1.08 and0.70 respectively) make small positive contributions. Along with the above
variables, 23 schools with significant regression coefficients contribute to
explaining a further 2.7% of the total variation, 12 making a positive
contribution to the end of P2 predicted score. Of these, 7 are reference schools.
This is balanced out by the fact that of the 11 making a negative contribution,
7 are also reference schools.
12.15 Repeating the analysis using multilevel regression (pupil characteristics andschools as the two levels) confirms the results of the simple regression model.
The contribution of the various pupil characteristics to the total predictedvariance is 95.55 (standard error = 1.47) while the school contribution is 5.42
(standard error = 1.92). Thus around 5% of pupils’ end of P2 test performancecan be attributed to differences between schools. Of the pupil characteristics
with significant regression coefficients, start and end of P1 scores, end of P2
learning orientation and being a girl all featured in the simple regression
analysis. The only addition using the multilevel model was membership of
Cohort 3 confirming that the advantaged gained by Cohort 2 pupils in P1 hadbeen eroded by the end of P2.
12.16 A similar analysis can be used to chart the progress of Cohort 1 pupils as they
move through P2 to P4. This combines the P2 control classes who took theend of P2 test in June 2005 and completed the P4 year in June 2007 andCohort 1 SCT ‘experimental’ classes who followed the same pathway from
June 2006 to June 2008. The end of P2 scores are the largest predictor of P4
attainment (unstandardised regression coefficient = 0.83) accounting for
70.9% of the explained variance. The pupils’ orientation to learning at the endof P4 accounts for just over another 1% of this variation. Being a girl,having a Principal who has strong beliefs in the value of SCT and isexperienced also contributes positively but being in Cohort 1 reduces thepupils’ P4 mean score by 1.8%. This reflects the adverse effect of returning tolarge classes. 17 schools have significant regression coefficients of which 6
make negative contributions to the P4 scores. The school contribution to the
explained variance was again tested using the multi-level regression model.
The pupil contribution now has 4 significant regression coefficients consistingof the end of P2 scores, end of P4 orientation to learning, being a girl andmembership of Cohort 1, the latter making a negative contribution(unstandardised regression coefficient = -2.08). These measures contribute
81.49 to the total variation (standard error = 1.55) while schools contribute
4.15 (standard error = 1.19) so that approximately 5% of the pupil attainment
at the end of P4 is attributable to schools.

5712.17 It is also of some interest to conduct the same analysis separately for theexperimental school and the controls to see if schools’ contribution differs
when classes are smaller. Table 12.5 displays the comparison using theaggregated scores from the Chinese, English and mathematics tests. In bothcases the end of P3 test is the main predictor of P4 attainment followed by theend of P2 test. These two variables account for 81.8% of the explained
variance in the experimental sample and 77.9% in the controls. Girls appear togain a bigger advantage in the small classes and the active leadership of the
Principal also makes a contribution. In the control classes, Principals who
have either a negative (bottom quartile in ratings) or a positive view (topquartile in ratings) of the value of small classes feature in the regression
equation. Presumably, a Principal with somewhat negative views of SCT
accepts the existing conditions in normal classrooms and encourages staff tocope as best they can. Principals with positive views may be more likely
devise strategies which compensate for larger classes, such as deploying
existing resources (including teachers) more effectively to take account of
individual circumstance with a particular class. For example they may employ
a non-specialist teacher in a certain subject because of his or her expertise incoping with certain pupils with behavioural problems and this may, in part,
explain the findings in para 9.9.
12.18 In the experimental sample 10 schools have significant unstandardised
regression coefficients while in the control group there are 13. The relative
contributions can be determined using the multilevel regression model where
for the experimental sample just over 4% of the predicted P4 attainment is
attributable to schools against just over 11% for the control group. Again,using the multilevel model adds little to the simpler regression analysis.
Looking at the individual schools involved it is interesting to note that only
three schools feature in both the analysis of the experimental and the control
samples. These are Schools 34 and 15 who contribute positively to thepredicted P4 score. But School 16 makes a negative contribution when classes
are small but a positive one when they are normal. What this seems tosuggest is that it is the teacher’s expertise that has much the biggest influence,
irrespective of whether the class is of small or normal size.
Table 12.5

Significant predictors of end of P4 attainment (Cohort 1 v Control)

Small Class sample
Significant
variable

Regression
coefficient

Constant
P3 end test
P2 end test
Being a girlP1 end test
P4 attitudes
School 34
School 15+ Leadership
School 19-2.176
0.513
0.317
1.452
0.085
1.162
4.614
2.222
1.661
-4.010Control sample

Squaremultiplecorrelation
0.768
0.818
0.820
0.822
0.824
0.826
0.827
0.829
0.829

Significant
variable

Regression
coefficient

Constant
P3 end test
P2 end test
P4 attitudes
P1 end test
School 17
School 10
School 27
School 34
School 15-11.099
0.604
0.196
2.889
0.146
10.300-1.778
7.088
6.095
2.050

58

Squaremultiplecorrelation
0.761
0.779
0.790
0.794
0.798
0.801
0.804
0.806
0.807

Small Class sample
Significant
variable
School 10
School 2
School 16
School 7
School 36
School 33
School 23

Regression
coefficient-2.865-2.855-3.208-3.718-2.394-1.918-2.210Control sample

Squaremultiplecorrelation
0.830
0.831
0.832
0.832
0.833
0.833.
0.834

Significant
variable

Regression
coefficient

School 9
Being a girl
School 26
School 16
School 35- SCT view
+ SCT view
School 11
School 24
School 31
School 3

5.453
1.476
4.006
2.740
3.603
3.047
2.032
5.424
-3.516-2.993-4.448Squaremultiplecorrelation
0.809
0.811
0.812
0.813
0.814
0.815
0.816
0.816
0.817
0.818
0.818

12.19 As a final check the regression equations were modified first to exclude thecontribution of the end of P3 scores, then those of P2 and finally the end of P1
when predicting P4 attainment. In the control group removing P3 scores
reduces the proportion of explained variance accounted for from 81.8% to75.5% while also removing the end of P2 scores reduces the figure to 69.3%.
When no attainment data are included the figure drops to 14.2%. In theexperimental group excluding P3 attainment reduces the total varianceaccounted for from 83.4% to 78.5%. When the end of P2 scores are excluded
from the regression equation the figure is reduced to 48.9% and with noattainment measure the figure reduces to 27.1%. Ten schools contributeabout 3.5% to this variation (14 in the control group contributing 8%). In thecontrol group being one of the schools with a high proportion ofdisadvantaged pupils enters the regression equation (unstandardised regression
coefficient = -7.537) confirming the earlier analysis that being in a smallerclass in these schools makes a positive contribution to pupils’ P4 attainment.
In the experimental sample when no attainment measure is included in the
regression equation it is being SEN which contributes 17.2 % of the total
explained variation with parental support contributing a further 3.3%.
12.20 These results support the conclusions of earlier analyses. Whether pupils arein a small or a normal class what matters most is their prior attainment at theend of the year. Small classes may compensate, in part, for prior attainment onentry to primary school, particularly for pupils with disadvantaged
backgrounds to the extent that they have matched the performance of children
in classes with standard populations of pupils by the end of P1. However, anysuch advantages are gradually eroded year by year so that by the end of P4 on
returning to normal classes they fall behind. School differences tend to begreater in normal classes, although the same schools do not always feature in
top and bottom quartiles in successive years. This points to differential intakesat the start of primary schools and the greater expertise of some teachers as
pupils move from class to class.

59

13.

Some general conclusions

13.1

At the beginning of this final report a number of questions were posed. The
first of these was central to the study since it asked whether pupils in smallclasses made better progress in attainment and improved attitudes andmotivation than children in normal classes. The answer would appear to be yes
in P1 but not to the same extent subsequently. In P1 classes both boys andgirls in Cohort 2 did better than either those in Cohort 3 normal classes or theirpeers in the reference groups but in P2 classes the situation was less clear cut
where the regression analysis indicated that the pupils in Cohort 3 wereadvantaged. With attitudes and motivation there were no significant
differences between the samples. In each year of the study, as pupils
progressed from P1 to P4 both attitudes and motivation declined althoughstarting in P1 at a high level.

13.2

Beyond P2, where differences in attainment occurred they did not appear tofavour any one group systematically. In P3, as the TSA analysis confirmed the
major effect appeared to be ‘teaching for the test’ which boosted pupil’s scores
irrespective of whether pupils were in small or large classes. In the analysis of
the sequence from the entering P1 to the end of P4 the contribution of theimmediate preceding year was the major determinant in predicting pupil
progress. Whereas, initially, parental background, the school attended, thepupils orientation to learning and the Principal’s leadership made a modest
contribution to the P2 scores by the end of P4 the final P3 scores were
accounting for between 75% and 80% of the total variation. The implication ofthese findings is that what counts most is the quality of the teaching.

13.3

The above conclusion means that the second question, which asked if theresults of being in a small class for more than one year were additive, mustreceive a tentative negative response. By the time pupils return to normalclasses and complete P3 (Cohort 2) and P4 (Cohort 1) the advantages have
either been reduced or eliminated and in the case of Cohort 1 moving back to
the normal class in P4 marks a dip in progress relative to pupils who haveremained in normal classes since entry to primary school. The finding that in
Cohort 2 the class size effect is greatest during the first year in primary school
but declines thereafter is a feature of other research, notably Blatchford et al.
(2003). This result suggests, as do other studies, that the benefits of smallclasses are greatest during the first year of primary school. However, unlike
some other studies, notably that of the Tennessee STAR project, there waslittle to be gained (in terms of achievement) in continuing in the small class forthree or even two years. This result needs to be seen in the context that theclasses in the present study ranged from 20 to 25 pupils compared to those in
the STAR project where numbers were around 15. It also needs to berecognised, as the cluster analysis demonstrated, that teachers were still
experimenting in the use of different teaching approaches so that results could
be expected to vary. Finally the move to normal size classes in P4 appeared tohave negative consequences in that pupils who switched back made lessprogress in P4 than did pupils who had been taught in regular classes since
entry to primary school.

60

13.4

These results must, however, be treated with caution for the reasons advanced
earlier in the report. Most importantly, previous research where the results
have been of greater significance have compared classes of around 15 pupils
with those that in some cases were in the mid thirties. The previous researchdoes suggest that although there are some benefits when classes are in therange 20-25 these are not as clear cut. In the present study some Cohort 3classes were only marginally greater than the small class limit of 25, either
because of declining rolls or because school Principals, having experienced
small classes, juggled with existing resources in the attempt to continue tokeep numbers as small as possible in the initial years of primary schooling.
Thus in some cases the comparisons may not have afforded a sufficientdifference in class composition to yield medium to large effect sizes.

13.5

The third question dealt with the impact of pupil and teacher behaviours on
pupils’ attainment and attitudes. Here the results were again not clear cut. Fourdifferent teaching approaches were identified but there was no consistent
relationship with different kinds of pupil behaviour. This suggested that thevarious pupil types were more a matter of individual temperament or
personality rather than a consequence of a particular teaching approach. The
analysis of differences between small and normal classes indicated that while
teachers in the latter classes were mostly wedded to whole class instruction
with the smallest proportion of active pupil participation, their colleagues insmall classes were much more experimental in their choice of approach.
Insofar as there were differences in attainment and attitude it was the transition
from instructors to whole class questioning which resulted in several positive
differences, particularly improvements in pupils’ disposition towards learning.

13.6

Type 2 teachers (group task monitors) as might be expected had the highest
percentage of pupils labelled active collaborators. These pupils have some ofthe highest levels of distraction suggesting that teachers have yet to master theeffective use of collaborative group activities. This view is supported by the
informal observation carried out during the consultant’s visits to schools as
typified by the earlier description of the mathematics lessons (paras 4.3 and
4.4). Group work was often used for tasks with relatively trivial academic
outcomes and where ground rules for working effectively were seldom
reinforced as the theory suggests they should be. At this present stage ofdevelopment pair work would seem the better option.

13.7

The question of whether smaller classes were of particular value in schools
having a high proportion of disadvantage students was also considered. In
both Chinese and mathematics P1 pupils from the ‘disadvantaged’ schools
hold their own while in Cohort 2 they do better than the remaining sample ofexperimental schools. In English, the deficit on entry, largely due to the highproportion of Mainland born children, the disadvantaged schools never makeup lost ground. As was true of the results in general, however, any advantage
at the end of P1 is eroded by the time pupils have completed their P3 year.
Unlike the comparisons between the small and normal classes where girls in
Chinese and English generally do better, in the disadvantaged schools it is theboys who show most improvement initially and whose attitudes, although they
decline year by year do so more slowly than do the girls’ dispositions.

61

13.8

The final set of questions examined other possible variables which might
contribute to successful SCT. These contributions however were relatively
small and their influence diminished as pupils moved through the primaryschool. Schools contributed a maximum of around 8% to the variation inscores in P1 and around 6% by the time pupils reached the end of the P4 year.
Two of the strongest components of this school contribution were the degreeof parental support and the active leadership of the Principal. The influence ofparental support lessened as pupils moved from P1 to P4. When an analysis
was undertaken which compared the most successful and least successful
schools in the experimental sample it was more frequently the case that themathematics lesson in the least successful schools would be taught by ateacher who had not taken the subject as his or her major/elective.

13.9

Very little evidence emerged from the analysis of different teachingapproaches to suggest that one rather than another had a major effect on
pupils’ academic progress. But teachers had begun to switch away from wholeclass instruction towards a mix of sustained individual and pair work with anemphasis on sustained enquiry, group work and more whole class discussion.
Of these three alternative approaches that of cooperative group work appearedless successful in keeping all pupils fully occupied ‘on task.’ Teachers too
often had pupils working on activities in groups where each participant had to
await his or her turn to measure or write. In these circumstances the non-active
pupils were often distracted when they were supposed to be listening or
watching attentively. This problem can only be overcome if pupils have been
trained to work in groups and if the ‘rules of group work’ are continually
reinforced in briefing and debriefing sessions.

13.10 Teachers need different kinds of professional support at different stages.
Initially when beginning to teach small classes the most useful support is froma mentor who can demonstrate certain easily replicated strategies, such as theuse of daily talk to increase pupil participation. Once teachers have passed
through this initiation stage they need support from outside consultants who
can offer various examples of different approaches when teaching certain
kinds of topic. The emphasis here should be on the planning rather than thegeneric pedagogy since at this consolidation stage teachers are extremely task
orientated. Visiting other teachers’ classrooms and trying out each other’s
practical ideas can also be very beneficial. The third stage, which so far only a
few teachers that the consultant has observed and interviewed appear to havereached, is one of re-orientation where the emphasis is on the pedagogy which
emerges out of the six principles. Learning circles appear to be the ideal
mechanism for promoting this professional dialogue and the use of video toact as a stimulus for these discussions is a crucial element. That is not to saythat learning circles are only suitable for teachers at the re-orientation stage;
they can also be used for planning and for discussions about curriculum tasks.
However, it is the highly reflective teachers who are likely to draw the mostbenefits from the ‘communities of learning’ that learning circles represent.
13.11 Because small classes are designed to increase pupil participation in thelearning it is often the case that additional practical resource materials are
required. Teachers in Hong Kong work longer hours than those in the West.

62

The most useful support for the teacher is therefore time; time to plan and toshare with colleagues, time to supplement the textbook and its accompanying
resources by materials which place the learning in contexts which aremeaningful for pupils. The increased use of group and pair work also demands
additional resources to support such activities. Principals therefore have tolook for ways of helping to find time for teachers to engage in this kind of
preparation. Offering more non contact time for professional development
activities, having fewer but longer teaching periods and allowing teachers tospecialize in certain levels so that they teach more than one class in a year
group are all ways of reducing demands on teachers’ time. Whether, in thelong term, a bank of resources, available through the individual schools’
intranet, should be created is a question for further consideration. At one
extreme, as has happened in the UK, weaker teachers simply use the resource
materials as an alternative textbook while in the hand of more imaginative
practitioners the resources are adapted and added to. Schools’ collection ofvideo extracts which illustrate the use of the six principles should certainly beof value both for inter and intra school discussions. Teachers can also help
themselves by remembering that the school environment is often a useful
resource so that in mathematics, for example, there are plenty of examples in
the classroom and the school which illustrate, circles, rectangles and triangles.
Pupils can also be a valuable resource in bringing examples from home which
can be used to illuminate various lessons.
13.12 The above results do not suggest that smaller classes with between 20 and 25
pupils are of themselves a solution to some of the problems identified during
the course of the study. They do not provide a solution to declining attitudes
and motivation which are a global phenomenon in the more developed
countries; as pupils move up the primary school their interest in core areas of
the curriculum decline and the decline is greatest among pupils of higher
ability. In Hong Kong this is true of Chinese suggesting that able pupils findthe teaching and content of present lessons less than stimulating. Neither dosmall classes appear to deal with another global issue, that of boys’
underachievement, although in Hong Kong boys continue to outperform girls
in mathematics. English for boys, particularly those born in the Mainland,presents formidable problems.
13.13 Nevertheless, teachers in the SCT study have, on the evidence, presented
attempts to develop an array of alternative teaching strategies designed tomaximise the potential of smaller classes. The very fact that they were
engaged in finding ways of using such techniques such as group work and pairwork in the context of Hong Kong classrooms may, in part, explain why gains
in attainment, where they occurred, produced only small effect sizes.
Research suggests that successful classroom innovation can rarely be achievedin less than five years. Yet despite limited success nearly all teachers in the
study said that when faced with a smaller class they experienced less stressand a greater degree of professional comfort. This was true of both the firstand second administration of the teachers’ questionnaire, even though during
the intervening three years their workload appeared to increase slightly. Many
will feel that these feelings alone provide sufficient justification for theextension of small classes to all schools in the near future.

63

14.

Recommendations

14.1

A number of suggestions and recommendations have already been made forextending the work of the project in ways that would facilitate the effective
introduction of SCT in all primary schools. The results which have emerged
during this final year of fieldwork have if anything reinforced this earlier
advice. It is clear that many teachers are still struggling to implement the kindsof classroom practice embodied in the principles set out in para 2.11 of thisreport. The effectiveness of these principles in bringing about improvementsin pupils’ learning has been demonstrated empirically and much of thisevidence has been summarised by Hattie (2005) and Hattie and Timperley(2007). But behind these pedagogic strategies there are also a series of
propositions based upon cognitive theories of learning. These are briefly
described at Appendix III.

14.2

There is strong evidence that one of main reasons why it is so difficult toimplement pedagogic change of any kind is that teachers do not have a graspof the underlying theories which support the use of certain teachingapproaches. Often the terms used to describe some aspect of teaching areunclear and promote confusion rather than understanding; interactive wholeclass teaching being a case in point (Alexander 2008b:31-34). Without
sufficient understanding teachers find it difficult to apply such principles inways that suit the contexts of a particular classroom (Timperley et al. 20-07).
The result is that when faced with a problem there is a tendency to abandon
the new innovative approach and revert to previously well tried methods(Desforges 2003). This is what appeared to have happened in the English
classrooms of the experimental schools where the experimentation in the firstyear was replaced in the second year by practices which were very similar to
those used by teachers in normal classes in the control group. Gaining clear
understanding of the theoretical principles governing the proposed changes inpractice is what Coburn (2003) in a review of innovations which havesuccessfully ‘gone to scale’ refers to as depth.

14.3

Yet teachers when questioned about professional development often say thatwhat they value most are practical suggestions rather than theory. Thus they
will happily respond to a workshop which explores ways of getting children tobrainstorm ideas or to create mind maps without understanding that both thesetechniques embody theories of learning out of which comes a principle that
exploration should generally precede instruction. Hong Kong teachers are nodifferent from their colleagues elsewhere in that their responses to theteachers’ questionnaire in the present study tended to put the highest premiumon practical support rather than on sharing ideas. Teachers in the case studies,for example, said that they found ‘hands on sessions’ more useful than theseminars.

14.4

The situation has become more difficult because of the nature of the leadershipthat most school Principals now offer. In the past two decades, for the bestof motives, authorities all over the globe have moved to give schools greater
autonomy. As a result Principals have taken on a vast array of administrative64

duties that often find them working up to 70 hours a week during the schoolterm (Galton and MacBeath 2008). One result of ‘devolved management’ toschools has been for headteachers to spend less and less time on curriculum
matters (including the monitoring of teaching) and increasingly delegate suchtasks to curriculum leaders. In this way distributed leadership has beentransformed into delegated leadership. According to MacBeath (2008) today’s
school leaders are often “more concerned with accounting than learning, with
control than with teaching , with compliance than with risk-taking and withpublic relations than with the quality of student experience,” and Y. C. Cheng
writing in the same volume, with his experience of Hong Kong schools,
echoes some of these sentiments (Cheng 2008).
14.5

The shift to scale will not succeed in developing effective SCT unless ways
can be found to encourage Principals to take a more active part in curriculum
development. It is one of the messages of this present study where in theanalysis of the most and least successful project schools active leadership was
one of the identified factors. MacBeath (2008) describes this process as
Leadership for Learning and cites (McLaughlin & Talbert 2001) in arguingthat it requires a kind of collegiality which challenges rather than reinforces
existing practice and which is based on the idea of learning as a cultural andsocial as well as a cognitive activity. In this sense learning is viewed as acollaborative, communicative and cooperative experience and, as such, it
involves everyone; senior managers, teachers, support staff, pupils and parents.
Only the school Principal is in a position to develop and encourage thislearning culture throughout the school.

14.6

A second approach to introducing some understanding of the principles
governing the development of expertise in SCT is to develop the kinds ofprofessional development which embody the idea of communities of practice(Louis and Marks (1998); Watkins (2005); Stoll and Louis (2007). In the SCT
study the learning circles have been an outstanding success and have done
more than anything to wean teachers away from the idea that there is arepertoire of pedagogic skills that are unique to SCT. Thus a sensible future
approach would be to adopt a mixture of professional development seminars,
mainly for Principals and curriculum leaders and to continue to support thedevelopment of an increasing number of learning circles.

14.7

Some discussions of the above suggestions have already taken place with theschool support team and others associated with the SCT study. Doubts wereexpressed as to whether the school support team had the time or the necessary
theoretical background to support a large number of learning circles. An
alternative therefore would be to base this activity within various University
Education Departments. If this were to happen it would be important to ensurethat staff who acted as mentors to the learning circles had gained familiarity
with the guiding principles of the SCT study and were happy to endorse theseeven where different circles undertook different starting points by exploring
issues of diversity rather than cooperative learning.

14.8

Indeed, the results of the past four years suggest, with hindsight, that there
may have been some advantage in the learning circles if less emphasis had
been placed initially on cooperative group work, even though this was the65stated priority of the participating teachers. This not only created theimpression among the teachers outside the learning circles that this was what
required to be done in small classes but it has also proved more difficult toadapt the principles and practices of cooperative learning into the context ofthe Hong Kong classroom, particularly in English where teachers often lacked
sufficient confidence to depart from the textbook format. What evidence
emerges from the analysis of teacher types suggest that a transition fromwhole class instruction to whole class ‘dialogic’ discourse, using a greater
variety of questions, may be a better starting point. When this is coupled withthe greater use of pair and individual enquiry, where there are more sustainedinteractions between teachers and pupils, mainly in the form of listening to thepupils’ explanations, there seems the likelihood of making more progress.
Although little emerged from the attempt to link the teacher types with pupil
progress it was these two teaching approaches (individual and pair sustained
enquirers and whole class questioners) which appeared to improve pupils’
attitudes and motivation. Coupled with this finding was the result that pupils’
dispositions to learning regularly featured as a predictor of end of year
attainment in the various regression analyses.
14.9

On the matter of pupil diversity, which teachers saw as a difficult problem,
Principals should do their best to ensure that certain measures, which research
has shown help teachers to cope with a wide range of ability, are in place.
Among these are flexible forms of classroom organisation that allow teachers
to change the structure and function of groups so that at times they canconcentrate on slower learners while other pupils work independently. The useof peer tutoring is another worthwhile strategy. Pupils who find learning
difficult also need to have work situated in contexts that are, as far as possible,
meaningful in terms of their everyday lives. This implies less use of textbooks.

14.10 In their responses to the questionnaire teachers expressed considerable
satisfaction with the technical support they received. However, there are someways that the technical support could be enhanced. Visualisers proved
particular useful in the plenary sessions after group work because they allowed
pupils to present their results while facing the class. In other classes pupils
were forced to hold up pieces of paper (or attach them to the black board withbluetak) which meant that when reading their results pupils had their backs totheir classmates. Since pupils were often reluctant to speak out so thatclassmates could hear them this practice added to the communicationdifficulties. A more radical suggestion would be to bring back computers into
the classroom rather than situate them in a dedicated laboratory. The internet
has become a vital resource and the availability of wireless connections andcheaper laptops makes this a feasible option. As argued in para 13.11 teachers’
time is a key resource and marking pupils’ work and various other assessment
tasks alone account for the difference in hours worked by primary teachers in
England and those in Hong Kong. The sixth principle incorporating the ideasof ‘Assessment for Learning’ is designed to place less emphasis on assessment
through homework using worksheets or questions from the textbook. At
interviews, however, teachers often justified existing practice by saying thatparent pressure made it difficult to reduce the amount of homework. It is clearthat many parents have not understood the implications of the ‘Learning to66

Learn’ reforms and judge the teachers effectiveness on the speed at which
homework is set and marked. More is said in a later paragraph on freeing upteachers’ time but it seems clear that more needs to be done for parents to be
re-educated as to the implications of SCT for the way that pupils learn.
14.11 Cordingley and Bell (2007:11) were previously quoted in summarising several
systematic reviews on going from the pilot stage to full-scale implementationof an initiative. In the context of the above paragraphs it is worth repeating
their main conclusion in which they identify a number of key factors which
are an essential pre-requisite of successful pedagogic change. Added to theirlist are some comments (in italics) which relate specifically to the SCT studyin Hong Kong.


Monitoring and evaluation systems that are inbuilt from the start andwhich focus on key elements, in this case the desired changes inclassroom processes rather than concentrating solely outcomes. A
simplified form of our observation system (attached at Appendix II) could
be used for this purpose as well as Brophy’s 10 key features of teachingfor understanding at Appendix III and schools’ collection of video
extracts which illustrate the use of the six principles could also be used as
starting point for discussion in the within- or between-school learning
circles.



Active participation by the leadership. Not only should leaders set thegoals and distribute resources, but they should involve themselves in boththe monitoring and the discussions of how best to modify the innovation
to suit the particular circumstances of the school. In this way leaders are
better able to understand the difficulties experienced by teachers during
the process of innovation and provide suitable advice and support.
Professional development seminars should concentrate on Principals andcurriculum leaders in developing the notion of leadership for learning,
introducing the six key principles supporting SCT and providing thelearning theory which underpins these principles. The study has
demonstrated that communities of practice discussed earlier (para 6.10)
are a vital ingredient in bringing about pedagogic change. The learning
circles exemplify all that is best in this approach but for them to be
successful teachers need to be provided with adequate time for sharing
and reflection with colleagues and to feel that their Principal is
exercising leadership in learning as well as being the organiser andprovider of necessary resources. That is why active participation by
Principals in such communities is important.

Networking and collaboration between schools in a spirit of coconstruction where all participants identify and build on what they know
and can do already as against a ‘best leading the rest’ approach. Each
local group of schools should be encouraged to set up learning circles
both within school and between schools so that one feeds off the other.
These Circles should concentrate first on improving the quality of wholeclass discussion and the use of pair work rather than concentrating on
more difficult to implement pedagogies such as collaborative group work.

67

A core team able to supply specialist support as required and to offer
coaching where it is deemed necessary. Specialist coaching, should
always aim to make secure the knowledge, beliefs and moral purposesthat underpins the reform and to develop understanding of key principles(Joyce and Showers 2003), otherwise what is mastered will not besustained. Members of the core team should be a mix of people withcurriculum knowledge but also there should be some with anunderstanding of the psychological principles of learning and theirconsequences for teaching. In this way subject didactics, the use ofcertain teaching procedures such as, for example, brainstorming inscience or mind mapping in mathematics, can be related to the principles
set out at Appendix III. The core team could be supplemented bycolleagues from University Departments of Education. Those chosen
should understand the rationale behind the guiding principles of the SCT
study and be willing to accept these as a working framework.



Dissemination of practices, materials and other resources. Learning
circles within and between schools, being an effective means for
professional exchange, should be encouraged to share materials andexperiences.
14.12 A further recommendation concerns the use of the teachers’ time. The teacher
questionnaire results show that workloads have slightly increased. This is one
reason why learning circles have not had a greater impact because once backin their school teachers find it difficult to engage with colleagues about theirreflections. Another reason is that teachers teach too many year groups and sohave too few opportunities to improve on an idea by being able to teach thesame lesson to a parallel class in the immediate future. It is this restriction thatlies behind the request by many teachers in the SCT study to specialise byconcentrating their teaching on fewer year groups. As far as possible, teachers
should specialise in teaching lower or upper primary pupils with opportunities
to teach more than one class in any age group.
14.13 Teachers also felt that 35 minute periods were too short to include worthwhile
discussions as well as instruction. While many schools have some double
periods in which teachers can do group work etc. others have introduced 45
minute periods with more possibilities for pupil participation. School
Principals should review the school timetable to enable teachers to plan andimplement lessons which allow greater amounts of pupil activity andcommunication.
14.14 Finally there is the question of Initial Teacher Education. While it is wellrecognised that novice teachers often become immersed in the particularschool culture in which they do their practicum and adopt the practice of theschool mentor, there is still a need to prepare them for teaching small classes
in primary schools since these will soon be the norm. In some ways thesenovices with the support of their University tutors can act as agents of change.
University Departments of Education therefore need to consider ways inwhich the findings from this study could be used to reinforce existing andfuture programmes on matters such as teaching for understanding, catering
for diversity and helping pupils to develop as independent thinkers.

6814.15 This final report must conclude with some words of thanks. First to themembers of the Education Bureau (the senior and junior officers, members of
the school support team) who have helped and encouraged me throughout thisstudy. Second, members of the steering committee for cogent advice and,
finally, and most of all, to the Principals and teachers in the participating Hong
Kong schools who have shown such interest in the study and have been so
welcoming on my visits to their schools and classrooms. I have learnt muchfrom the experience of seeing lessons in Chinese and in mathematics as wellas in English. I have greatly admired the dedication of these practitioners to
the wellbeing of their pupils. As teachers, we all get our inspiration andwillingness to ‘go the extra mile’ from those ‘magic moments’ when a pupil’seyes light up at the point where ignorance is supplanted by genuine
understanding. Sadly in recent years, particularly in the West, these magic
moments have become fewer because of the emphasis placed on a narrowcurriculum and on a notion of accountability which relies on frequentassessments and regular target setting. It is my hope that, over time, theimplementation of SCT in Hong Kong primary schools will eventuallyencourage a more active, creative approach to learning and this will result inmany more magic moments.

69

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73

Appendix I
Administration Plan for Tests/Student Questionnaires
37 Experimental Schools
P1(Pre-P1 test in mid Oct 04
P1-end test/Q in June 05)

P2(P1-end test in early Dec 04
P2-end test in June 05)

P3(P2-end test in early Dec 04
P3-end test in June 05)

P1
2005/06(Pre-P1 test/Q in mid Sept 05
school year
P1-end test/Q in June 06)

P2(P2-end test/Q in June 06)

P3(P3-end test/Q in June 06)

P1
2006/07(Pre-P1 test/Q in mid Sept 06
school year
P1-end test/Q in June 07)

P2(P2-end test/Q in June 07)

P3(P3-end test/Q in June 07)

P4(P4-end test/Q in June 07)

2007/08school yearP2
(P2-end test/Q in June 08)

P3(P3-end test/Q in June 08)

P4(P4-end test/Q in June 08)

2004/05school year

Note:
Solid-line boxes represent the experimental groups in small class.
Double-solid-line boxes represent the experimental groups to continue their study in regular class at P3/P4.
Dotted-line boxes represent the control groups, i.e. the cohorts of pupils not in small class.

15 Reference Schools# 15 reference schools will be included to provide an external reference for comparing the growth of students' academic
performance in P1 to P4 in schools of regular class size.
#P1
2006/07(Pre-P1 test/Q in mid Sept 06
school year
P1-end test/Q in June 07)
2007/08school year

#P2
(P1-end test/Q in mid Sept 06
P2-end test/Q in June 07)#P3(P2-end test/Q in mid Sept 06
P3-end test/Q in June 07)#P2(P2-end test/Q in June 08)#P3(P3-end test/Q in June 08)74#P4(P4-end test/Q in June 08)

Appendix II
TEACHER OBSERVATION RECORD
School : ………………………….…….… Yr: ……………

Class:……….….

Name of Tchr: …………………………… Tchr: m1/f2
Pupils grouped by: achvmt: mixed1 same2 / friendship3 / gender4

Curric area: Eng1
Math2 Chin3Class Size: …………………
Other Adults: Team tchr1 Net tchr2 Tchg Asst3 Other4 ……………...……

I/a

Conversation categories (I/a column)
QUESTIONS (pupil answers by)
1 recalls facts
2 offers idea/solution (closed: one correct answer)
3 offers idea/solution (open: several possible answers)
4 refers to task supervision (how task is progressing etc)
5 refers to routine matter (clearing up, behaviour etc)
STATEMENTS
6 of fact (including demonstration, blackboard)
7 of ideas
8 of task directions (tells pupil/s what to do)
9 of correcting feedback (corrects work)
10 of informing feedback (discusses work, pupils' ideas)
11 of behavioural feedback (comments on pupils' behaviour)
12 of routine directions (tidying up, collect homework etc)

123

Date: …………………….…

L/w

Au

Time
0.30
1.00
1.30
2.00
2.30
3.00
3.30
4.00
4.30
5.00

Turn Overleaf for Pp Observation
0.30
1.00
1.30
2.00
2.30
3.00
3.30
4.00
4.30
5.00

Listening and watching categories (L/w column)
listening to pupil report or explain
listening to pupil read from book/text etc
silently watching pupil/s working

Teacher’s audience (Au column)
1 individual boy pupil
2 individual girl pupil
3 boy for group
4 girl for group
5 boy for class
6 girl for class
7 pair
8 whole group
9 whole class
10 sustained into next time unit

Turn Overleaf for Pp Observation
0.30
1.00
1.30
2.00
2.30
3.00
3.30
4.00
4.30
5.00

Remarks:75

PUPIL OBSERVATION RECORD
PLEASE TURN OVERLEAF FOR TEACHER OBSERVATION(1)Target’s Name: ……………………………… Target’s Class No.: …………… STRN: ………………… Gender: M/F
1
Tgt’s beh

TARGET PUPIL ACTIVITY
2
3
4
Tgt’s loc
Tchr’sSeating
activity5
Mode of
Working

TARGET-ADULT ACTIVITY
6
7
8
9
Tgt’s
Adult
Content
Settingrole

Ability: H/L

TARGET-PEER ACTIVITY
10
11
12
13
Tgt’s
Mode
Task
Gender
role

Time

1

0.30

2

1.00

3

1.30

4

2.00

(2)

Target’s Name: ……………………………… Target’s Class No.: …………… STRN: ………………… Gender: M/F
1
Tgt’s beh

TARGET PUPIL ACTIVITY
2
3
4
Tchr’s
Tgt’s loc
Seating
activity5
Mode of
Working

TARGET-ADULT ACTIVITY
6
7
8
9
Tgt’s
Adult
Content
Settingrole

Ability: H/L

TARGET-PEER ACTIVITY
10
11
12
13
Tgt’s
Mode
Task
Gender
role

Time

1

0.30

2

1.00

3

1.30

4

2.00

PLEASE TURN OVERLEAF FOR TEACHER OBSERVATION(3)

Target’s Name: ……………………………… Target’s Class No.: …………… STRN: ………………… Gender: M/F
1
Tgt’s beh

TARGET PUPIL ACTIVITY
2
3
4
Tchr’s
Tgt’s loc
Seating
activity5
Mode of
Working

TARGET-ADULT ACTIVITY
6
7
8
9
Tgt’s
Adult
Content
Settingrole

Ability: H/L

TARGET-PEER ACTIVITY
10
11
12
13
Tgt’s
Mode
Task
Gender
role

Time

1

0.30

2

1.00

3

1.30

4

2.00

(4)

Target’s Name: ……………………………… Target’s Class No.: …………… STRN: ………………… Gender: M/F
1
Tgt’s beh

TARGET PUPIL ACTIVITY
2
3
4
Tgt’s loc
Tchr’sSeating
activity5
Mode of
Working

TARGET-ADULT ACTIVITY
6
7
8
9
Tgt’s
Adult
Content
Settingrole

Ability: H/L

TARGET-PEER ACTIVITY
10
11
12
13
Tgt’s
Mode
Task
Gender
role

Time

1

0.30

2

1.00

3

1.30

4

2.00

PLEASE TURN OVERLEAF FOR TEACHER OBSERVATION
1. TARGET’S BEHAVIOUR

2. TARGET’S LOCATION

1
2
3
4
5

1
2
3

ON TASKROUTINE
DISTRACTEDPARTIAL
OTHER

6. TARGET’S ROLE
1
2
3

INITIATE
STARPART

10. TARGET’S ROLE
1
2
3
4
5

BEGINSRESPONDSTRIESIGNORESSUSTAINSTARGET PUPIL ACTIVITY
3. TEACHER’S ACTIVITYIN
OUT
MOBILE

1
2
3
4

T PRESENTT ELSE
T MONITORT HOUSESKEEPINGTARGET-ADULT ACTIVITY
7. ADULT INVOLVED
8. CONTENT
1
2
3
4TEACHER
CLASS ASSIST
NET
OTHER

1
2
3
4

TASK WORKROUTINEFBACK EFFFBACK + /-TARGET-PEER ACTIVITY
11. MODE OF CONTACT
12. TASK
1
2

VERBALOTHER

1
2

4. SEATING

5. MODE OF WORKING

1
2
3
4
5

1
2
3
4

ALONE
PAIR
GROUP
FLOOR/FRONTCHANGE/MOVE

9. SETTING
1
2
3
4
5

TGT IND ATTENTION
IND for GROUP
IND for CLASS
GROUP
CLASS

13. GENDERSAMEDIFFERENT

76

1
2
3

SS
OS
SEVERALINDIVIDUAL
PAIR
GROUP
CLASS

TARGET PUPIL ACTIVITY
1.

Category
Target’s Behaviour

2. Target’s Location

3.

Teacher’s Activity

4. Seating (physicalarrangement) - what
the teaching is
expecting the target todo
5. Mode of Working –how the teacher is
expecting the target to
work

1
2
3
4
5

Item
ON TASKROUTINE
DISTRACTEDPARTIAL
OTHER

1
2
3
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
5

IN
OUT
MOBILET PRESENTT ELSE
T MONITORT HOUSEKEEP
ALONE
PAIR
GROUP
FLOOR/FRONTCHANGE/MOVE

1
2
3
4

INDIVIDUAL
PAIR
GROUP
CLASS

Definition
Fully engaged on task
Fully engaged on routine work ( e.g. tidying, sharpening pencil, etc)
Totally distracted
Partially on-task
Other behaviour (e.g. Waiting for adult’s attention, watching adult/s
interact with others)
Target in baseTarget out of base but not moving
Target moving around classroom
Teacher presents with target through proximity or interaction.
Teacher is interacting with other pupils / whole class.
Teacher watches pupil/s.
Teacher is housekeeping (tidying, handing out books/paper/materials).
Target sits at desk/table alone.
Target sits in pairs at desk/table.
Target sits in a group at tables/desks.
Target sits/stands at front of class on floor/chairs etc.
Target changes seating pattern (e.g. from alone to pair or moves aroundwith permission)
Target is expected to work on his own.
Target is expected to work in pair.
Target is expected to work in group.
Target is expected to work with the whole class.

TARGET- ADULT ACTIVITY
Category
6. Target’s
Role
7.

Adult
Involved

8.

Content

9. Setting

Item
INITIATE
STAR
PART
TCHR
CLASS ASST
NET
OTHER
TASK WORKROUTINEFBACK EFFORTFBACK CORRTGT IND ATT
IND for GROUP
IND for CLASS
GROUP
CLASS

1
2
3
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
5

Definition
Target attempts to interact with teacher/adult.
Target is the focus of the teacher/adult’s attention.
Target is part of the teacher/adult audience.
Teacher involved
Classroom assistant involved
Native English teacher involved
Other adult involved (headteacher/ SEN teacher)Interaction concerns task work/supervisionInteraction concerns classroom management/control
Interaction gives feedback which refers to effort
Interaction gives feedback on work 4+ =praise; 4- = criticism
Teacher/Adult gives target individual attention (group/class not required to attend).
Teacher/Adult gives individual attention but group required to attend.
Teacher/Adult gives individual attention but class required to attend.
Teacher/Adult interacts with group with no child in focus.
Teacher/Adult interacts with class with no child in focus.
TARGET-PEER ACTIVITY

Category
10. Target’sRole

11. Mode ofContact
12. Task
13. Gender

1
2
3
4
5
1
2

Item
BEGINSRESPONDSTRIESIGNORGESSUSTAINSVERBAL
OTHER

1
2
1
2
3

SAME
DIFFERENT
SS
OS
SEVERAL

Definition
Target begins new contact with pupil/s.
Target responds to attempted contact by pupil/s.
Target unsuccessfully attempts to make contact with pupil/s.
Target ignores attempted contact by pupil/s.
Target sustains contact into next time unit.
Interaction involves speaking.
Interaction involves physical contact (touching), gesture (nodding) or materials(sharing colouring pencils) but no speaking.
Other pupil/s working on same task as target
Other pupil/s working on different task as target
Target interacts with pupil of same sex.
Target interacts with pupil of opposite sex.
Target interacts with more than one pupil.

77

Appendix III

Learning for Teaching

3

In Section 2 of this report the six key principles of classroom practice, which havebeen used to guide the school support team’s approach to maximising the advantagesof smaller classes, were enumerated. Support for these principles was found from theempirical evidence drawn from various meta analysis which have been summarised
by Hattie (2005) and Hattie & Timperley (2007). However, these ideas also rest on
certain assumptions about how pupils learn because any theory of learning carries
with it implications for teaching (Simon 1981, (2008a). Thus in defining pedagogy as
the science of the art of teaching Gage (1978) argues that the science of teaching
derives from ideas about learning, while the art of teaching consists of the teachers’
attempts to put these ideas into practice in a variety of different classroom contexts.
The latter is what we generally refer to as the teachers’ craft knowledge.
Charles Deforges, an ex-primary teacher and leading researcher on these matters,
observes that schools would be even more successful in developing these principles
that Simon called for nearly three decades ago, if we could all learn to “share and use
the knowledge we have about learning”. Deforges accepts that there is a vast bodyof knowledge of learning which emerges from the everyday practice of teachers, but
he observes that this knowledge is difficult to get at and therefore difficult to share.
Thus we cannot base our ideas about pedagogy solely on teachers’ craft knowledge.
But Desforges also observes that there is a small but strong body of scientificknowledge about learning to be gleaned from psychological research. However, heargues that while this knowledge is easy to get it is difficult to apply. He therefore
suggests that the trick we need to perform is to bring the practical knowledge ofteachers and the theoretical knowledge of researchers together in order to promoteadvanced teaching practices (Deforges 2003:14).
One of the earliest attempts to link different theories of learning to particular teachingapproaches was undertaken by Joyce and Weil (1972). These authors devoted
specific chapters to various interpretations of learning, and then illustrated their use
from transcripts of actual lessons in which teachers either deliberately or intuitively
made use of these particular ideas. Joyce and Weil make the point at the outset ofthe book that attempts to compare one teaching method with another or to fashion one
overall general teaching method have a chequered history. Comparative studies
generally show, these authors claimed, “that differences between different approaches
are for specific objectives” and they go on to say “that although the results are very
difficult to interpret the evidence to date gives little encouragement to those who
would hope that we have identified a single reliable multi-purpose teaching strategy
as the best approach.”(Joyce and Weil, 1972:8).
Because researchers have developed a multitude of different ways of representing theprocesses that we describe as learning, Joyce and Weil begin by defining what theyterm a number of families of models. Although these different families are notmutually exclusive, they do represent distinct approaches to learning and teachingaccording to Joyce and Weil. There are, for example, models based on theories
3

The appendix is based on extracts from Chapters 3 and 4 in Galton, M. (2007) Learning andTeaching in the Primary Classroom, London: Sage Publications.

78

about information processing or behaviour, others which draw upon ideas about social
interaction, and models which tend to emphasise the development of personalunderstanding and self-actualisation. The task of linking these families of models
with a specific repertoire of teaching activities results in a series of networks that are
extremely complex. For example in the information processing category are listed
seven alternative/complementary approaches, in the social interaction five, and in the
personal models a further five. Recognising that such a degree of complexity was
likely to limit the take up of these ideas a simpler version was created (Joyce et al.,1997). However, it still remains a complex and rather formidable task for teachers tomaster the intricacies of all the different combinations.
Ways of knowing
For the above reasons Galton (2007) has argued that a more useful starting point,
from a practitioner’s point of view, might be to consider the kinds of knowledge
demands which different tasks make upon the learner, and then to select anappropriate model of learning from the many which seeks the inculcation,
accumulation or development of this particular kind of knowledge. The starting
point of this analysis is a simple three part typology, which was constructed byPatricia Alexander and her colleagues, and was based on a synthesis of a number ofarticles in educational journals concerning the different ways that the authors wrote
about knowledge when referring to learning, (Alexander et al 1991). These
researchers argued most knowledge acquisition involved procedural, conceptual or
metacognitive knowledge. Procedural knowledge is defined as more than ‘knowing
what’ or the acquisition of new facts or new skills (usually called declarativeknowledge). It also involves knowing how,’ that is the ability not only to locate new
information but also in which circumstances to make use of it (conditional
knowledge). In today’s primary classroom, where the use of the world-wide web isfairly commonplace, the ability to locate information, restructure it for a particularpurpose, and then to use it to illustrate a point or principle would encompass this kindof procedural knowledge.
Conceptual knowledge, Alexander et al’s second over-arching category, concerns theknowledge of ideas, the way they function and the conditions in which they should be
used. The term refers, by implication, to complex and often non-linear knowledge
structures, unlike some simple mathematics or science concepts where the different
parts constitute the definition of a whole (e.g. simple fractions or states of matter). A
key process in the acquisition of conceptual knowledge is the capacity to recognise
instances of belonging and not belonging to a given class which defines the concept,
as in the ability to understand what constitutes a mammal and what one does about
creatures such as whales. Because there are often a potentially large number ofcharacteristics which can be used to define any classification we often create subcategories which Alexander et al. (1991) term domain knowledge. Concepts which
are central to a specialised field of study then become part of discipline knowledge.
The final component of conceptual knowledge is the ability to convey these ideas toothers. This involves knowledge about the use of appropriate language (discourse
knowledge). Within the framework of a given discipline, it is also necessary to use aform of words that allows meaning to be conveyed as propositional statements. Thishas to be done in ways which make use of knowledge of the language registers thatare appropriate for a given audience. Alexander et al. (1991) defines knowledge of the79

available and relevant styles of spoken and written communication as syntactic andrhetorical knowledge respectively.
The third part of the typology, metacognitive knowledge concerns the capacity to beaware of one’s cognitive processes and an ability to regulate or manage this process
unaided. According to Pintrich (2002:219) metacognitive knowledge involves“knowledge about cognition in general as well as awareness of and knowledge about
one’s own cognition.” In recent years, the renewed interest by psychologists into
this aspect of learning stems from the key part such knowledge plays in “helping
students become responsible for their own cognition and thinking.” Pintrich makes
the point that this interest is common to most theoretical approaches to learning anddevelopment:“From neo-Piagetian models, to Vygotskian and cultural or situated learning models,
regardless of their theoretical perspectives researchers agree that with development students
become more aware of their own thinking as well as more knowledgeable about cognition in
general. Furthermore, as they act on this awareness the tend to learn better…The labels forthis general development tend to vary from theory to theory, but they include thedevelopment of metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive awareness, self-awareness, selfreflection and self-regulation.” (Pintrich 2002: 219)

Metacognition also involves what Shulman (1986; 1987) has called strategic
knowledge, or the ability to recognise what is an acceptable form of cognitive
processing within a given domain or discipline and what does not conform to theserules. In science, for example, to test a given proposition we may need to design anexperiment that controls for other interfering variables in the form of a fair test.
Alexander et al. (1991) argue that beside strategic knowledge (i.e. knowledge ofappropriate and legitimate strategies) there must also be self-knowledge. This formof knowledge concerns the learner’s capacity to regulate their cognitive processing
and involves an ability to recognise errors and to monitor one’s thinking. Thesevarious strands of the typology can be presented in diagrammatic form by way of asummary of Alexander et al’s (1991) schema.
A Typology of Knowledge Acquisition

Types of Knowledge

Procedural(Knowing what +Knowing how)Conceptual(Development of ideas: theirfunction & use)

Metacognitive(Self- regulation of cognitive
processes)

Declarative knowledge+

Domain knowledge
Discipline knowledge+

Strategic knowledge+

Conditional Knowledge

Discourse knowledge =syntactic + rhetoricalknowledge80

Self- knowledge

A framework for learning?
During this process of acquiring these three different types of knowledge there must
be a shift in the way that information is processed. At the core of this transformation,according to Bereiter (1991) is a distinction between learning as an additive process
and learning as reorganisation. This view is in some ways very similar to the modelof learning put forward by Bennett et al. (1984) in their attempt to determine how well
primary teachers matched tasks to their pupils’ immediate needs. Among various
categories these researchers distinguished between tasks that were designed to provide
pupils with new knowledge in incremental steps and those that taught them torestructure existing knowledge so that problems could be examined in new ways or
pupils could discover rules or ideas for themselves. Within Alexander et al’s (1991)
typology, which to a degree appears also to be a hierarchy, children move from apoint where they acquire knowledge that is already known by others, to a point where
they can order that knowledge within particular frameworks, to a further point where
they can, without too much assistance, interrogate their own thought processes increating their personal frameworks or restructuring existing ones. It is in this sense
therefore that pupils eventually become “metacognitively wise.”
Alexander (this time Robin), (2001: 344) is unhappy with some of Patricia
Alexander’s definitions. He criticises, in particular, the use of procedural knowledge
as a ‘catch all’ term. He prefers to separate knowledge acquisition (declarativeknowledge) from knowledge of routines, which can be defined as knowing where togain such knowledge and how best to use it (conditional knowledge). One of thereasons why Robin Alexander is keen to sub divide procedural knowledge is because
his interest in classroom discourse leads him to emphasise the importance of Edwards
and Mercer’s (1987) distinction between principled and ritual knowledge. Edwards
and Mercer point out that one purpose of teaching rules and relationships is to leadpupils to an understanding of certain principles (the way certain kinds of knowledge
are organised) which belongs to the second of Patricia Alexander’s typology
categories of knowledge as conceptualisation. But learning a rule can also lead tomerely repetitive performance in which the rules or procedures are memorised but
cannot be applied in novel settings in a way that would support deeper understanding.
Desforges (2003: 20) illustrates this by a story of a teacher who taught vocabulary by
writing words and their definitions on the board and then getting the children tomemorise everything that he had written. In the next lesson, as a practice/extensiontask, the class were asked to make up a sentence using the new vocabulary. One of
the words on the list was ‘stimulate’ which the teacher had defined as to ‘stir up.’
One pupil wrote as her sentence, ‘Mother stimulated the soup.’
There is obviously a case to be made for sometimes learning rules as a series of rituals
such as, for example, learning the 10 times table. One of the key differences notedby the author when sitting in P1 classes in Hong Kong in comparison with UKclassrooms is the extensive time taken over learning definitions and rules in the firstyears of formal schooling. In one classroom, for example, a whole 60 minute lesson
was devoted to identifying the key characteristics which define rectangles. Children
were encouraged to bring various empty packages (fruit juice cartons, washingpowder etc.) from home, draw around the outlines and identify the rectangular shapes.
The next lesson investigated the special case of the square, the next irregular
rectangular shapes. In another class, the children played a variety of number games
designed to create fluency in counting and manipulating numerals from one to ten.

81

Hong Kong pupils top the international league tables in mathematics, yet from an
English perspective these lessons appeared to ‘over-teach’ these topics. Similar
examples to the Hong Kong approach can be found in some continental European
countries. In Switzerland, for example, children entering the primary school after theage of six and a quarter spend much of the first year mastering the decimal number
system in performing the four basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction etc.).
The evidence suggests that this initial extended concentration on manipulating
numbers, much of it through rapid oral question and answer sessions, pays off later on
where 11 year old Swiss pupils were observed successfully completing tasks that are
generally set for Year 14 in England (Prais 1997).
There is, of course, no way of knowing how an individual pupil perceives rules andprocedures other than when he or she comes to use them. We know from the studyof experts, and by definition experts must be metacognitively wise, that they have aprincipled understanding of rules whereas the less competent performer generally has
a ritualised one Berliner (1994). Competent performers typically go through arecitation of the rules and by a process of trial and error attempt to find the one whichapplies in a given case. Experts, on the other hand, seek to reconceptualise theproblem in ways which allow them to identify the most appropriate rule to apply.
The latter process is much faster and explains why Grand Masters at chess can take on
and often beat the computer. Thus making the distinction between principled andritualised knowledge, while useful in the analysis of discourse and for helping
teachers to think about the way a task should be structured, doesn’t in practice requirechanges in Patricia Alexander et al’s (1991) typology provided, as is implied by thesewriters, that the three categories are viewed as part of a continuum. This is because,
for Patricia Alexander, the acquisition of declarative knowledge involving rules orroutines are a means to an end (that end being to make pupils metacognitively wise)
so that her main concerns are with principled rather than ritual knowledge. Further,from the point of view of developing an appropriate pedagogy for teaching rules androutines it matters little whether the desired outcome is to promoting Bereiter’s (1991)‘additive learning’ (as with learning the ten times table) or learning as ‘reorganisation’(as with teaching vocabulary definitions of words such as stimulate to use in
sentences) since the principles of instruction are much the same.
Learning as information processing
That being said, there seems a remarkable degree of agreement, as Desforges (2003)
has claimed, concerning the implications for teaching what Patricia Alexander et al.
(1991) term procedural knowledge. At its simplest, learning can be conceived as aseries of outcomes which result in an enduring change in knowledge or skill as aresult from exposure to some experience. These outcomes are then committed tomemory. Bredo (1997) has claimed that this kind of learning is underpinned bybehaviourist theories, because it envisages the knowledge to be acquired can be
broken down into small steps and a degree of reinforcement can then be provided atvarious points along the way whenever success has been achieved. Such learning is
also said to be associationist because one important technique for retaining this new
knowledge in the memory is to build up chains whereby certain stimuli produce
specific responses. Watkins (2003) describes this process as “learning is beingtaught” or LBT for short.

82More generally the kinds of processes used to acquire this form of learning can beencompassed within a general model known as information processing. According
to Meadows (1993, p 213) the term is a collective noun for a series of explanations
about how children use certain cognitive processes in order to process informationthat they acquire. The early theorists such as Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) suggested
a parallel existed with computer hardware and computer software in their account of
the memory system and distinguished between the memory structure, which isanalogous to the computer hardware, and the manner in which the memory iscontrolled which is analogous to the software. Successful learning therefore depends
ultimately on the speed of operation and the memory capacity. According to thissimple model, the mind like a digital computer has both short and long term memory
stores and a central processing unit. The unit exercises executive control by utilising
specific procedures and routines when solving particular problems. Many of these
problems in computing are solved by a process of approximation and iteration. With
the latter procedure, the first solution is arrived at by guesswork, perhaps on the basisof previous experience. This guess is then used for the initial calculation and theresult fed back into the programme to provide a better solution. The result of thissecond calculation is again put back into the system and the process goes on till very
little improvement can be detected in successive iterations. This process of
successive iteration clearly has parallels with the view of thinking adopted by Bennett
et al (1984) which they termed restructuring and tuning. Central to the theory is theidea of rehearsal (or practice) Meadows 1993:213) which enables information to beretained in the working memory (analogous to the central processor) for longer
periods of time, and makes it more likely that it will be retained in the long-term
memory store for subsequent retrieval.
Classroom studies by Alton-Lee & Nuthall (1992) and Nuthall (2000, 2004) havesupported and developed these ideas regarding the function of the working memory.
He and his research partner, Adrienne Alton-Lee, a former primary teacher, found that
information that was relevant for successfully answering multiple-choice test items
correctly was unlikely to be retained for more than two days, unless linked to otherrepresentations already in the working memory or which again entered the memory on
the subsequent day. These researchers also found that pupils could generate simple
constructs when there was an appropriate mix in the working memory consisting of a
combination of specific information, generalisations, visual stimuli, word meanings
and skills. In any one instance, the most effective combination depended on the task
demand so that a test question asking pupils to write down the temperature recordedon an accompanying picture of a thermometer was more likely to be answered
correctly if the pupil had experience of carrying out the practical procedure ofmeasuring temperature.
This brief account is a relatively simple presentation of the main ideas behind theinformation processing models of cognition, but nevertheless sufficient to meet theaim of establishing some general principles of teaching based on this working modelof how pupils learn. As Meadows (1993: 223) argues, while the models work well for“tasks which require conscious effort and strategic thought,” they are less helpful inexplaining tasks which children in the nursery appear to perform spontaneously (e.g.
building a tower out of rectangular blocks). Perhaps more crucially in the search forsuitable working theories of learning, information processing fails to account for,what might be termed ‘instantaneous restructuring,’ where one’s ideas are83transformed in a moment of inspiration rather than through the process of iteration
discussed earlier.
Learning as constructing and reconstructing knowledge
This leads to the second possible working theory of learning based on the idea of
constructivism. Whereas the computer analogy tends to see the take-up of information
as a somewhat passive activity, at least initially, the constructivist approach regards
the process as an interactive one. According to Piaget, for example, new informationinteracts with what we already know in two main ways. First, the new information ismodified so that the brain can assimilate what we all ready know and second, what weknow already is modified to accommodate this new information. Thus in the earlier
example of classification the pupil may well include a whale within the category of
mammals because of similarities in the way its offspring are produced and reared,
while ignoring the other characteristics that would associate it more closely with fish
and other water creatures. Once, however, these latter characteristics are taken into
account it becomes necessary for the pupil to modify the original conception of what
constitutes a mammal, because of the cognitive conflict that arises when all the salientfeatures of the whale are identified.
This kind of learning has been described as an active process of sense making.
According to Conner (2004) “learning is determined by what goes on in children’s
heads and with how they make sense of the world. They do this by relating
experience to existing organised concepts and principles which vary with eachindividual’s past experience”. In this approach the process of gaining new
knowledge (or applying that new knowledge to different contexts) is seen as actively
constructing and then reconstructing one’s ideas. The process involves relating these
new experiences to existing concepts which in turn are conditioned by previous
experience. Watkins (2003) taking a similar approach also describes this kind oflearning as individual sense making or LIS for short. In contrast to LBT there is
therefore no assumption at the outset that the learner is essentially a blank canvas oran empty container into which new knowledge must the programmed. Instead, thestarting point is a belief that each individual has partial understanding of the world
which s/he brings to every new experience. Thus in one lesson on evaporation for aclass of 10 year olds the author placed a full glass of water onto a hot radiator at thestart of the school day. By the afternoon some of the water had disappeared. To thequestion, “Where has the water gone?” the pupils offered a variety of answers among
which were, “You drank it Sir!” “The glass has got bigger.” and “Some of the water
has escaped into the air.” In this situation, therefore, the teacher needs to find astarting point that takes account of individual pupil differences, unlike the simple
information processing model where a definition of evaporation would be presented
to the class either verbally or more probably by means of a demonstration.
One metaphor which has been used to describe the role of the teacher within thisconstructivist framework is that of ‘teacher as a gardener’ since primary teachers arevery fond of horticultural metaphors (Cortazzi 1991). Successful gardeners are
skilled at planting seeds in suitable soil and aiding propagation by a combination of
judicious watering and the application of fertiliser. In the same way teachers areseen to foster this process of construction and reconstruction by providing thenecessary stimulating environment (soil conditions) offering well thought-out

84interventions (judicious watering) and engaging in supportive feedback by way of
encouragement (fertiliser application).
Critics of the LIS (Learning as Individual Sense making) model argue that an
important defect is its lack of attention to cultural influences (Daniels 2001). If thecritics ask, the process simply involves an individual attempting to make sense of thesurrounding world why is it that the concepts that pupils with similar cultural
backgrounds acquire have so much in common? For example, the notion ofcreativity in western countries places a high value on the uniqueness of what is
produced, whereas in Pacific Rim countries it pays greater attention on striving for
perfection. In one school visited by the author in Hong Kong, for example, the headteacher was a master calligrapher who enjoyed great esteem as an artist. His sole life’s
work as an artist consisted of repeated attempts to reproduce a perfect reproduction of
the earliest manuscripts of the basic one-thousand characters that constitute the main
source of all written communication in the Chinese language.
Socio-cultural contexts in learning
The answer to the above question, according to Bredo (1997) is that all learning issituated within a specific context. In this approach learning is seen as a form of
apprenticeship whereby the learner engages in the process of cognitive development
within a community as a way of gradually gaining acceptance as a full member of that
community (Brown and Campione 1990; Lave and Wenger 1999). It extends thenotion of reconstruction and construction but in a social context, so that the learnerinstead of being stimulated solely by the interaction with the environment now does
so mainly by engaging in discourse with others who are more knowledgeable(Watkins 2003). For this reason it is often referred to as social constructivism. Oneof the best examples of this kind of learning occurs in the training of teachers. There
would be few practitioners who would argue that they learnt more from their college
courses than they did in working alongside their colleagues during teaching practice.
Watkins (2003:14) terms this form of learning as ‘building knowledge as part of
doing things with others’ (LBKO).
The theory that underpins learning as LBKO is derived mainly from the work of theRussian psychologist, Vygotsky. At the heart of this theory, according to Wood
(1998:10) is the role of instruction in human development. One of the best known of
Vygotsky’s concepts is the zone of proximal development (ZPD) which he defined as“the gap which exists for an individual child between what he is able to do alone andwhat he can achieve with help from one more knowledgeable or skilled than himself”(Wood 1998:26). This leads to a definition of readiness which Wood defines as “thecapacity to learn with help.” This contrasts with the position commonly attributed to
Piaget, which conceives of readiness as largely dependent on an individual’s current
stage of development that varies from child to child. Robin Alexander (2001: 425)
takes a similar view to that of Wood, quoting Vygotsky’s maxim that “the only goodteaching is that which outpaces development.” He prefers a different translation of the
ZPD which replaces the word, proximal by either next or potential, because thisemphasises the importance of teachers having high expectations when helping
children through the zone (Alexander 2008b:11).
More importantly, in the search for simple but useful working models of learning thatcan be used to fashion certain principles of teaching Smith (1999: 159) argues that

85

that most viewpoints [whether individual (LIS) or socially constructivist LBKO)]
would agree to the following propositions:
1. Construction is undertaken by learners not teachers,
2. Learners’ constructions make use of available beliefs and expectations ingrappling for new ones,
3. Teaching can provide the opportunity for, not the guarantee of, even thetransmission of knowledge, and
4. Construction always involves socio-cultural construction.
Shayer (1997) agrees that for the purpose of devising an effective strategy ofintervention in the classroom, as a means of promoting cognitive acceleration in
pupils, it makes little sense to distinguish between these different constructivist
approaches. Brown and Palincsar (1986 pp 34-5) also argue that it is a mistake to see
Piaget’s ideas about child development in direct opposition to that of Vygotsky.
They suggest that the two theories are different ends of a continuum and in support ofthis view they represent the process of learning as ‘theory change’. Some changes
can be brought about by supportive (social) interaction while others can arise out of asituation where new experience conflicts with our existing knowledge producing thenecessary degree of cognitive conflict. In a nice and apt description they make thepoint that at one extreme, that of the social interactionist, we hold conversations withothers whereas at the other extreme of the continuum, that of the lone scientist, wehave similar conversations with ourselves. The essential point, however, is that thenature of the discourse is the same or similar in both cases (Brown and Campione1994). Thus in seeking to create a simple working model of learning as a process ofconstruction and reconstruction it seems that there is much to be said for combining
Watkins’ (2003) two categories, Learning as Individual Sense making (LIS) and
Learning through building knowledge as part of doing things with others (LBKO).
Learning as developing expertise
When talking about learning, particularly when referring to ways that demonstrate
their pupils’ increased understanding, teachers use a variety of descriptions (Entwistle
and Smith 2002). They talk about pupils “internalising knowledge and skills,”“working out the rules or patterns,” “making concrete versus abstract representations”
and “organising ideas and reasoning”. Primary teachers, however, more often talkabout pupils as “independent learners” or “independent thinkers” and this seems to
imply something more than the ability to argue with oneself as suggested by Brown
and Palincsar (1986). Patricia Alexander (2004:10) contends that the study ofexpertise (and by definition experts must be independent thinkers) in the academic
context is a neglected area of research. She argues that the acquisition of knowledge
is a core objective for education and that a key aspect in this process is the ways inwhich individuals move away from a reliance on others for the acquisition ofknowledge to a process where they can “discover it for themselves”. However, theresearch into expertise which took place in the 1970s and 1980s was primarily
dominated by the notion of ‘artificial intelligence.’ The researchers sought todetermine the characteristics of expert problem solvers so that these features could be
programmed into ‘intelligent machines’ or used to train non-experts. This has
limited the application of this research to school settings, partly because in the workon artificial intelligence most attention has been paid to differences between novices
and experts and not with process by which one makes the journey from one extreme
to another. Alexander (2004:12) argues that since students will rarely leave school86

at eighteen as experts in any subject domain it is the process of transformation intoexperts through the stages of acclimation, competence and proficiency that are most
relevant to teachers. At the acclimation stage pupils begin to grasp the elements ofstrategic knowledge (Shulman 1986) which help constitute a domain (the forms oflegitimate knowledge, what counts as evidence, ways of establishing the validity of a
proposition etc). But because these pupils lack the ability to distinguish between
accurate and inaccurate (or relevant and tangential) information they are hampered intheir thinking which therefore operates at a surface level. At the competence stage
pupils’ domain knowledge is more comprehensive and principled and a mixture ofsurface and deep level strategies are used. The final transformation towards
proficiency and expertise is marked by a shift away from these “surface level”
thinking strategies towards those which are of a “deep processing kind” and acapacity to engage in problem finding as well as problem solving.
This stress on the importance of situating the development of expertise within hedifferent knowledge domains recognises that academic disciplines are at the centre offormal schooling and that any working theory needs to relate to this ‘unique sociocultural context’ (Sternberg 2003). However cognitive processes by which thisexpert knowledge is acquired and gradually honed are common and concern what inher earlier writing Patricia Alexander et al (1991) defined as metacognitive
knowledge. To become an independent thinker requires an individual to haveknowledge of their own cognitive processes. There are two essential parts to thisknowledge, one which concerns the development of a repertoire of strategies that canbe used when confronted with a problem, and the other which consists of control
mechanism that can decide which strategies are likely to lead to success and which to
failure. In scientific hypothesising, for example, Alexander et al (1991) argue that
there is a need to develop mechanisms for evaluating different guesses, predicting thebest solutions and for developing ways of testing these predictions.
It follows from the previous paragraphs that there is a specific role for teachers in
helping children to become “metacognitively wise”. Indeed, Robin Alexander (1995:31) has suggested that one of the key problems that can arise in primary schools whenteachers seek to turn children into independent thinkers is the adoption of the maximthat “we mustn’t teach, we must let them learn”. Alexander objects strongly to thisposition.
“Underlying this [is a] simple confusion of teaching with telling which can be readily sorted
out. Once this is done there is a genuine pedagogical issue the degree of the teacher’s
mediation in the child’s learning. I use mediation in the most neutral term available but ofcourse the linguistic minefield here is a pretty extensive one and many of the other words ofcommon currency carry strong adverse loading – direction, intervention, pushing, interfering,
forcing, intruding. The competing imperatives therefore are clear and acute. While
ideology dictates a teacher’s role of facilitator and encourager, common sense (not tomention recent classroom research) indicates the benefit for children of powerfulinterventions by teachers, especially the kind which generate cognitive challenge.”

There are some researchers, who while agreeing with Alexander’s proposition that it
is important for teachers to present their pupils with situations which challenge
existing thinking frameworks, would by inference suggest that the teachers’ role indeveloping expertise is limited. This is because they view experts as people who areborn and not made. Thus both Gardner (1995) in respect to art and music and Noiceand Noice (1997) with regard to acting consider natural inherited talent to be the main87

determinant of expert performance. Both these writers argue that talent is a key todetermining the final level of accomplishment and also in developing and sustaining
interest. However, there are others who contest this proposition, notably Ericsson(1996) who suggests that “much of the popular evidence for talent and explicable
creativity is based on accounts that cannot be subjected to scientific analysis.” Insupport of the proposition that expert performers can be studied as “an empiricalphenomenon” he cites numerous studies from various domains such as athletics, chessand music to argue that motivation to practice for extended periods and a capacity toacquire from experience the ability “to circumvent some basic information-processing
limits” by enhanced “anticipation based on predictive advanced cues” is the key
determinant (Ericsson 1996, p 43). In applying the discussion to the development ofexpertise in teaching, Berliner (2002) takes up a position similar to Ericsson and cites
Glaser (1996) to argue that about two dozen propositions about expertise are
defensible. Among these are the following:
1. Expertise is specific to domains. This concurs with Patricia Alexander’s(2004) proposition that rather than teaching children generalised skills it isimportant to teach them to think as scientists, historians, creative writers etc.
Even where generalised skills are taught (e.g. concept mapping) it is important
to make use these in different subject domains so as to ensure transfer fromone domain to another.
2. Expertise does not develop linearly. At certain times plateaux occur thatindicate shifts in the child’s understanding and the stabilisation of certain
automatic procedures.
3. Experts structure knowledge more effectively and represent problems inqualitatively different ways to non-expert thinkers.
In general theirrepresentations are both deeper and richer and they are able to recognise
meaningful patterns much faster than others.
4. Experts are also able to impose meaning when confronted by different stimuli.
As such they are to be regarded as “top down processors” whereas non-experts
are often misled by the ambiguity imposed by different stimuli and are likely
to be bottom up processors. Experts develop automaticity in their behaviour
to allow conscious processing of more complex information. They also
develop self-regulatory processes (or executive control) as they engage inthese activities.
Linking learning with teaching
These above views of learning lead to different models of pedagogy, one which
supports the notion of transmission of knowledge and the other which supports theapplication of that knowledge in ways that demonstrate understanding (Good andBrophy 2002). Acquisition of procedural skills therefore differs from what is
generally meant by the term understanding. Unfortunately, as Howard Gardener andBox-Mansilla (1994:199) observe, “while most observers would endorse the goal ofteaching for understanding there have been only scattered attempts to find what ismeant by this phrase.” Leach and Moon (1999) suggest that teachers tend to regard
attempts to teach for understanding as a means of engaging students, sustaining theirinterest in continuing enquiry and leading them to see larger connections. For
Brophy (2004:40)

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“Students who learn content with understanding not only learn the content itself but
appreciate the reasons for learning it and retain it in a form that makes it usable whenneeded.”Furthermore, rather than contrast these two approaches in ways that forced earlier
generations of teachers to polarise their choice of pedagogy between traditional andprogressive teaching, Good and Brophy argue that it makes more sense to regard thetwo approaches as being complementary, since without the necessarily proceduralknowledge and skills pupils will find it difficult to engage in the kind of higher ordercognitive activity out of which understanding and metacognition develops. As usedby Brophy, understanding is contrasted with the mastery of content by memorisation
through drill and practice. It therefore encompasses the acquisition of skills andprocedures in the first strand of Patricia Alexander et al’s (1991) typology.
Teaching as transmission
As we saw earlier, some of the ideas involving information processing havedeveloped by using the analogy of the mind as a digital computer with its central
processing unit, its short-term working memory and its long-term storage facility.
The human short-term memory is very limited in the number of chunks of information
it can hold at any one time. Our success in transferring it to our long-term memory
store in a way which allows us to retrieve it from time to time depends on our ability
to use certain routines. These routines enable us to encode the information andprovide opportunities for repeated rehearsal of these procedures.
It has been shown that only about 40 per cent of material presented in an hour longlecture is remembered immediately afterwards. After one week this drops to around
17% unless we take steps to slow down the rate of loss. Although in the first years
of primary school children tend to use repetition as the main way of retaining
information, other more effective strategies (which do more than retain theinformation in the short-term memory for a few extra seconds) begin to develop by
the time children have moved to P4.
More pertinent to the teaching of primary school pupils is the work of the late
Grahame Nuthall and his collaborator Adrienne Alton-Leigh which was referred to inan earlier paragraph. These researchers spent time observing the teaching of certain
New Zealand curriculum units in a number of schools. Pupils were pre-tested andthen tested immediately after the class session, as soon as the unit had ended. They
were then again tested and interviewed 12 months after the unit was originally taught
to see how much of it they had remembered. Thus these researchers were able todistinguish between knowledge that was already known before the unit was taught
and knowledge that was acquired as a result of the teaching (incorrect answer on pretest but correct answer on post-test). In a similar fashion the researchers could also
determine what was not learnt during the unit (incorrect answers on both pre- and posttest) and what knowledge was retained over time (correct on both the immediate posttest and again 12 months later). Nuthall and Alton-Leigh (1993) found that, typically,
item-relevant information or experiences would be retained in the student’s working
memory for no longer than two days, unless it could attach itself to other bits of itemrelevant information that was already in the working memory, or that had been
retrieved from long-term memory during that or the subsequent day. This suggeststhat a crucial element of the particular pedagogy required when teaching fortransmission will concern itself not only with the introduction of new knowledge (the89

analogy is with the initial programming of a computer) but also with the repeated useof that knowledge either in the form of homework or by recapitulation at the start of
the next lesson. Such procedures are incorporated into a teaching approach known
as “direct instruction” (Denham and Lieberman 1986). This approach is not to be
confused with the term ‘direct teaching’ which had been used by earlier researchers(Anderson 1939, Flanders 1964) to distinguish between teachers who spent most of
the lesson lecturing students when imparting information or giving task instructions.
This contrasts with ‘indirect teaching’ which involved teachers in questioning pupils
and accepting and using their ideas with a degree of warmth and enthusiasm.
Direct instruction arose from attempts to put the theoretical concept of ‘mastery
learning’ into practice (Carroll (1963; Block 1971; Bloom 1976) wished to challenge
the conventional view of ability (as measured by intelligence tests) as something fixedand largely predetermined so that only some children were capable of learning certain
things. Carroll argued that, in principle, any pupil could be taught anything if
allowed sufficient time to learn. He expressed this principle in the proposition thatthe degree of learning was directly proportional to the ratio of time actually spent by apupil on a task, divided by the time needed by the pupil to master the demands of thattask.
Harnischfeger and Wiley (1976) have indicated a number of key components inrelation to the time spent on the task. First, successful teachers were accurate intheir diagnosis of the pupil performance levels in that they did not teach subject
matter which was already known or which was too advanced. Second, high levels of
pupil teacher interaction took place concerning the presentation of information,
monitoring work and giving feedback about performance. Such interactions usually
took place in a class setting. Third, teachers spent time discussing the structure of
the lesson prior to introducing new material. Fourth, teachers endorsed a value
system which emphasised academic goals and encouraged students to takeresponsibility in helping each other and in sharing material. These components andthe instructional processes outlined in the previous paragraphs can be combined toprovide a summary of the direct instruction approach (Rosenshine 1979).
KEY STEPS IN DIRECT INSTRUCTION
1. Starts with seat work and recapping the content previously taught;
2. Introduces new work either through teacher instruction or, modelling or by demonstration;
3. Makes sure pupils grasp these new ideas by a question and answers session in which thequestions are rapid so that interaction and pace is kept high;
4. Practices examples by working first as a class or group and then individually;
5. Looks back at the end of the lesson and reviews the new learning and links it to previous skills
and knowledge acquired.

Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s numerous studies of classrooms were undertaken
which indicated that direct instruction was very effective when teachers sought toenable pupils to acquire new skills or procedural knowledge (Brophy and Good 1986)
such as when teaching mathematics procedures, English grammar, historicalknowledge, map reading skills and scientific knowledge and procedures. However,it was also found that direct instruction was less successful when the skills and theknowledge to be taught could not be broken down into explicit steps. Thus areas
like mathematical problem-solving, discussing social issues, writing or making a
critical analysis of other people’s writings were less successful when direct instruction90was used (Rosenshine 1987). This conclusion is echoed in the advice given toprospective teachers by Desforges (1995: 129).
“Direct instruction is best used for knowledge transmission, for showing, telling anddemonstrating. It is never on its own sufficient to ensure deeper understanding, problem
solving, creativity or group work capacities.”

Teaching for understanding
Desforges’ assertion (backed by a wealth of research evidence) that direct instruction
is best used for knowledge transmission and is less effective when deeper
understanding is required, is also reflected in Alton-Lee and Nuthall’s (1998)
distinction between the generation of specific knowledge constructs and moregeneralised generic schema. They argue, for example, specific constructs such as“what causes rain” or “what is an anticyclone?” are inevitably linked to larger genericschemas about the nature of the physical world. In one example when a pupil was
asked to describe why she thought it was colder at night she replied that it was“because when it was cold people might want to have warm clothes and that people on theother side of the world would like a time when they had the sun so that it was much better tosleep when it was dark.”

In constructing this response it is clear that the pupil lacked a general schema which
included knowledge that the sun is a source of heat and that the earth goes round thesun. Furthermore, she also lacked the metacognitive awareness to be able torecognise that her argument or explanation was inadequate. Understanding involves
the application of procedural knowledge in the development of these generic schemaor concepts. As discussed earlier at the beginning of the chapter, the process bywhich conceptual understanding develops, as interpreted by those who espouseconstructivist models of learning, requires the teacher to create a classroom in which“thoughtful discourse” (Brophy (2004: 294) regularly occurs as a means of helping
pupils to reconstruct and transform their ideas.
For Howard Gardner (1999:169) too, understanding also embodies the operation ofhigher-order cognitive processes beyond information processing since “students
exhibit understanding when they can invoke ideas flexibly and appropriately to carryour specific analyses, interpretations, or critiques-and especially to perform theirunderstandings with respect to new material.” The idea of viewing understanding as
performance is central to Gardner’s position for two main reasons. The first of thesestems from the ‘common-sense’ observation that although understanding must
involve the “assimilation and transformation of knowledge, from the perspective ofthe teacher and the learner the physical events which occur in the mind or brain are far
from transparent and, strictly speaking, irrelevant to their educational missions”(Gardner 1999:160). But the second equally important reason for requiring students toperform their understanding is that it challenges “traditional ways of doing (or notdoing) things” whereby the teacher is required to “look beyond mastery of dictionary
definitions or the recitation of textbook examples.” Gardner goes on to suggest that
“Focusing on performance immediately marks an important shift: Instead of “masteringcontent,” one thinks about the reasons why a particular content is being taught and how best
to display one’s comprehension of that content in a publicly accessible way. When students
realise they will have to apply knowledge and demonstrate insights in a public form, they91

assume a more active stance vis-à-vis material, seeking to exercise their “performancemuscles” whenever possible.” (Gardner 1999:161)

However, the capacity to solve problems or critique new material, while it does gosome way to predicting growth in a pupil’s understanding, is not always an infallible
guide to expert performance. This is because in many cases, such as crosswords, it ispossible to solve problems by trial and error once one has inkling (from pastexperience) of the compiler’s strategies for setting clues. For this reason otherpsychologists argue that it is always necessary for pupils to demonstrate theircomplete understanding in an observable way by making their thinking visible to theaudience. This involves verbalising the various strategies used to solve the problem
and reflecting on the relative strength and weaknesses of each approach.
Brophy (1992) has reviewed various programmes designed to teach understanding
across a range of subject disciplines. He notes that in attempting to create a suitableclassroom climate in which thoughtful discourse can take place these programmes
have a number of common features. First, and most important, content is organised
around a limited set of powerful ideas in a way that engages students interests (Roth2002). For example, in a science lesson on sources of energy the teacher first
introduced the topic to a class of ten-year old pupils with reference to global warming
and its consequences. Second, the pupil’s knowledge about the topic is explored andused as the starting point for instruction. In the above example the teacher asked
pupils to think about various sources of energy and how they were converted to otherforms. This was done by showing pictures of various objects on an overhead projector(a torch, a solar panel on the roof of a house, a car, a wind turbine etc). Third, thepupils’ initial ideas are then challenged by allowing them to explore the phenomena inquestion. Whenever possible this is done through direct, hands-on experience rather
than by the use of texts or through teacher’s narrative descriptions. In the above
lesson pupils were provided with a number of simple experiments involving amagnifying glass (to heat paper) tuning forks (which were struck and placed on atightly stretched string) and batteries and bulbs. Following the practical work the classdiscussed whether their initial ideas about energy needed to be modified in the light of
their experiments.
Cultivating Thoughtful Discourse
As reported in Brophy (2004) one researcher (Newman 1992) conducted a survey ofseveral thousand secondary students and asked them what motivated them to take partin class discussions. Most said that discussion worked best when the content of thelesson was authentic in the sense that they could link the ideas involved to their own
everyday experience and not necessarily, as is sometimes suggested, that there was apractical outcome. Newman (1990) in an earlier study identified a number of featuresthat characterise thoughtful discussion. The key ones are summarised below:
1.

Students generate original and unconventional ideas through the use of open questions whichallow a range of possible answers.

2.

Students are given plenty of time to think before being required to answer questions.

3.

The teacher presses students to explain and justify their assertions rather than accepting themor reinforcing them indiscriminately.

4.

The teacher models the characteristics of ‘thoughtful discourse’ in his response to students byshowing interest in their ideas and by ‘thinking aloud’ when engaged in problem solving.

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The use of open questions has been a long-standing problem in teaching. Edwards
and Mercer (1987) offer reasons why this situation persists. Class discussion usuallyconsists of a sequence of what these researchers call “cued elicitations” whereby
when a teacher asks a question he or she simultaneously provides clues as to theinformation required. Thus intended open questions often end up by becoming
closed, in that pupils come to accept that although the question allows for many
answers there is only one which the teacher really wants from them. Many teachers’
open questions are also often combined with heavy prompts, clues and cues so that inreality the approach does not differ from direct instruction. This is illustrated in thefollowing extract from a science/music lesson where pupils have to arrange different
sized sticks to produce a simple xylophone.
Teacher: How did I arrange these?
First child: You sort of...you put one here, and you put the medium there, and you put the skinny one
there, and then you put the other medium there, and then you put the fatso there, and thenyou put the skinny one there.
Second child: When you listen on there you'll see what we said.
Teacher: That's right.

But let's look at these sticks again.

Why did I put them this way?

Second child: Because you made a design full of steps.
Teacher: Steps, that's right.

How can you tell they're steps?

First child: Because one is medium, then the other one's skinnier, then it gets medium again, then itgets fatter, and then it gets skinnier.
Teacher: Well, there are other types of steps too.

Just look at the tops.

First child: It gets fatter.
Teacher: Just a minute.

Just look at the tops of these sticks.

First child: But ...
Teacher: Just look at the very top.

What can you tell me about the top?

Second child: Looks like train tracks.
First child: They look like steps on the ends.
Teacher: Very good, like steps; but what can you... How can you tell they are like steps?

One is...

Second child: One is high(Extracted from Budd-Rowe (1973) Teaching Science as a Continuous Enquiry pp254-255)

Here the teacher repeats the pupils answers (Steps. That’s right) offers clues (Just lookat the top repeated three times) and indicates the correct answer (One is…).
It is
clearly not an easy matter for teachers to break away from this pattern of discourse.
Indeed, some studies show that teachers are often unaware of how much guidance
they give (Galton 1989, p 38). This is because unlike direct instruction where theteacher mostly controls the exchanges, during class discussion pupils are able tomanipulate the situation for their own ends. When asked by Galton (1989, p 73)
pupils offered a range of strategies for avoiding being picked by the teacher to give ananswer. They mainly achieved this result by giving an impression that they required
more thinking time. Being asked difficult questions was accordingly to one pupil

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“like walking on a tightrope”. Pupils said they often worried lest they lost face withpeers in such situations. If they volunteered too many acceptable answers tooquickly they could earn the reputation of being a “boff”. If they offered too few
answers they might be regarded as “thick”. It was therefore much safer to persuadeteachers to answer their own questions. Thus when faced with a challenge pupils
attempted to strike a bargain with the teacher. In return for not attempting to subvert
the discussion (by disruption, joking or attempting to distract the teacher from the
topic) pupils expected that in turn the teacher would not expose them to humiliation
by forcing them to answer so that they “feel silly in front of their friends” (Galton
1989, p72). Faced with a new class at the beginning of a new school year a certain
amount of this exchange bargaining will take place till each side (pupils and teachers)
are reasonably content and a working consensus is established (Pollard 1985). For thisreason open questions are not always the best means of promoting thoughtful
discussion. Dillon (1990) for example, argues that sometimes a provocative statementby the teacher can be more effective in producing sustained responses from the class.
Other interventions designed to get a pupil to elaborate on his or her initial answer(“tell us more about that” or “perhaps you could think of an example”) or indirectquestions (“Why do you say that?”) are also useful (Dillon, 1990).
Dialogic teaching
One attempt to improve this situation has been to promote what Robin Alexander(2008b) terms ‘dialogic teaching’. Alexander argues that the present situation isexacerbated by using such descriptions of classroom discourse as interactive wholeclass teaching which tends to focus on the organisational aspects of the pedagogy and“not what matters most: the quality, dynamics and contents of the talk.” Dialogic
teaching is intended to promote a community of inquiry where “learning is not a oneway linear communication but a reciprocal process in which ideas are bounced backand forth” (Alexander 2008, p22). For dialogic teaching to be successful it must
fulfil the following criteria in that it should be:1.

Collective: teachers and children address learning tasks together, whether as a class or as agroup;

2.

Reciprocal:
viewpoints;

3.

Supportive: children can articulate their ideas freely without fear of embarrassment overwrong answers, thereby helping each other to reach common understandings;

4.

Cumulative: teachers and pupils build on their own and each other’s ideas and chain theminto coherent lines of thinking and enquiry;

5.

Purposeful: in that teachers plan and steer classroom talk with specific educational goals inview.

teachers and children listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative

Dialogic teaching therefore attempts to minimise the use of rote, recitation andinstructional talk in favour of discussion and dialogue. In the latter case the teacher
and pupils (or group of pupils) achieve common understandings through structured
and cumulative questioning which “guide and prompt, reduce choices, minimise risk
and error and expedite handover of concepts and principles” (Alexander 2008b, p34).
For this to happen requires that pupils acquire what Alexander terms a repertoire oflearning talk, most of which has been shown to correlate positively with effective
discussion within collaborative group structures (Webb 1989). This includes the94ability to explain, to argue cases, to give reasons to back up assertions and to arrive atconclusions through negotiation rather than through majority decisions (Webb andMastergeorge 2003) Alexander argues that in order to engage in such dialogue pupils
must be taught this repertoire of talk skills and this is supported by research (Kagan
1988). Alexander suggests it is better to concentrate on the first of his three principles(collectivity, reciprocity and support) in the initial stages since accumulation also
requires teachers to restructure and re-sequence subject matter in ways that allow
them to “scaffold pupils’ thinking from present to desired understanding” (Alexander
2008b, p45).
Mercer et al (1999) also concurs that it is necessary to train children in order topromote what they term exploratory talk, which is very similar in its conception to
Alexander’s notion of dialogic talk. These researchers have offered empiricalevidence that inducting children into an explicit collaborative style of reasoning
within discussion has led to improvement in scores on tests of non-verbal reasoning.
Mercer et al (2004). Their study of talk in primary science lessons supports the viewthat training in these talk skills is required in order to promote effective discussion.
Mercer and colleagues note that children may get little experience of such talk “intheir lives out of school” and that teachers “rarely make their own expectations orcriteria for effective discussion explicit to children.” As a result children are rarely
offered guidance and training in how to communicate effectively in groups.
According to Mercer et al, even when the aim of talk is made explicit, for example
they are told to “talk together to decide” or to “Discuss this in your group,” there may
be “no real understanding of how to talk together or for what purpose” (Mercer et al.
2004:361).
Among the guiding principles used for training pupils to engage in exploratory talkwere the following:
1.

All relevant information is shared;2.

All members of the group are invited to contribute;

3.

Opinions and ideas are respected and considered;

4.

Everyone is asked to make their reasons clear;

5.

Challenges and alternatives are made explicit and are negotiated;

6.

The group seeks to reach agreement before taking a decision or acting.

After training Mercer et al (2004) were able to show that the quality of the talk
improved. There were nearly four times as many uses of words such as because, I
think etc., and nearly fifty times as many sustained utterances (defined as exceeding
100 characters).
The use of suitable wait times
The second key element in promoting “thoughtful discourse” is for the teacher to use
suitable wait times. Some researchers prefer the use of the term “reflection time” or“thinking time” since it implies more active participation. But the term initiallyreferred to the amount of time children were given to answer a question. One of theearliest studies by Rowe (1986) was able to record two kinds of wait time.

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Teacher: How would you measure the time if you didn’t have a watch?
Pupil:

I would use the sun.

Teacher:(pause for second wait time) That’s an interesting answer.
how you would use the sun?

(Pause for first wait time)

Can you say a little more about

Rowe found that in a classroom where pupils rarely answered questions wait times
were extremely short (less than three seconds). Moreover, slower learners were
given the least time to answer, presumably because the teacher wished to save these
pupils from any embarrassment in front of their peers, and because s/he did not
anticipate they would be able to respond in a useful way. The second wait time wasparticularly important because, teachers would frequently repeat the first answer thatthe pupils gave, thereby indicating approval, or else go on to ask someone else,
thereby indicating the first answer was not the one required or anticipated.
Biggs (1994) suggests that pupils in Chinese classrooms should be more willing toparticipate in classroom discussion because of the nature of children’s attributions
when faced with difficulties with their learning. Whereas children in the West tend
to attribute failure to learn to a lack of ability those in the East are more likely to put
their failure down to lack of effort. Hence there is more willingness to accept help
from others rather than regarding those who answer questions as ‘boffs’.
Nevertheless as in English primary classrooms, thinking time may be best achieved
initially by asking children to discuss the questions with their neighbour or in small
groups. In class discussion teachers should try to eliminate the kinds of responses
identified by Alexander (2008b) which lead pupils either to give short unelaborated
answers or to attempt to remain silent by pretending that they are still thinking about a
response. These include summarising, repeating or reformulating the pupil’s answer
or exhorting pupils to remember what was said or done earlier.
Explaining Why as well as How
The third key element in teaching for understanding requires the teacher to encourage
explanations and elaborations of answers. Here again from the analysis of classroom
discourse in five cultures, Robin Alexander (2001) demonstrates that teachers are notgood models in this respect. Classroom practitioners rarely justify their decisions inclass nor do they attempt to situate the learning in a wider context by telling pupils, as
in a previous example, how the conversion of energy from one form to another relates
to global warming and the survival of the planet. Correct forms of speech should be
encouraged in Hong Kong and in some English language classes, for example,
teachers now provide cue cards on which words such as ‘because’ are printed and theclass have a rule that any statement or suggestion must be followed by using one of
the words on the cue cards to make a sentence. However, in most lessons, because it
is rare for pupils to explain or elaborate in response to teachers’ questions during
present patterns of classroom discourse, it is clearly necessary to offer training topupils and to couple this with subsequent debriefing during which pupils have an
opportunity to evaluate the quality of their responses.
A teaching framework for developing understanding
In considering teaching for transmission it was possible to produce a sequence ofspecific classroom practices (questioning, instruction, practice etc) which combined toform a specific pedagogic approach known as direct instruction. It is now possible96

to do something similar in relation to teaching for understanding although thedescriptions are naturally more generalised, because to say that a pupil understands
something implies a number of possibilities. Brophy (2004:41) refers to thestatements as key features which characterise the conditions for promoting
understanding rather than indicating a set of sequential actions, as in the case of thedirect instruction. In other words, if these features are not present it is unlikely that
understanding will develop. The following Table displays these key features.
Although the wording of the six key principles of the SCT study do not exactly match
Brophy’s ten features they are the practical interpretation of them and follow from theearlier extended discussion of Brophy’s ideas.

Ten key features in teaching for understanding

1.

Pupil exploration will usually precede formal presentation. [Used in the study but notincorporated in the six principles. It relates to beginning lessons with a class discussion rather
than immediate instruction. It also relates to increasing pupil participation.]

2.

Pupils’ questions and comments often determine the focus of classroom discourse. [Second
key principle concerning extended questioning.]

3.

There is a high proportion of pupil talk, much of it occurring between pupils. So that themetaphor “teacher as a listener” and “guide on the side” rather than as a “sage on the stage”
are characteristic of the lesson. [Third key principle concerning increased pupil participation
and also fourth principle since Brophy argues this should often be done through the use ofgroup work.]

4.

The lesson requires pupils to reflect critically on the procedures and the methods they used.
[Fifth and sixth principles involving feedback which is informative (i.e. discusses procedures
used rather than supplying correct answers) and also assessment for learning which requires
pupils to assess the value of using different approaches. Brophy elaborates on these as an aid
to metacognition.]

5.

Whenever possible what is learned is related to the pupils’ lives outside school. [Again not
specified as a principle but teachers have been encouraged to situate work in local contexts.]

6.

Pupils are encouraged to use a variety of means and media to communicate their ideas. [Stems
from Howard Gardner’s notion of multiple intelligences and teachers have been encouraged touse practical applications using a variety of materials whenever appropriate.]

7.

Content to be taught is organized around a limited set of powerful ideas. [Brophy argues this isbest done at the start of a lesson using advanced organisers, the first key principle.]

8.

Teachers structure tasks in ways which limit the complexity involved. [This refers toscaffolding tasks.]

9.

Higher order thinking is developed within the context of the curriculum and not taught as adiscrete set of skills within a separate course unit. [This argues for a holistic approach and notusing specific thinking skill packages. We have adopted the former approach.]

10. The classroom ethos encourages pupils to offer speculative answers to challenging questions
without fearing failure. [Tries to put less emphasis on getting the right answer and relates tothe use of praise to reward ‘smartness’ rather than for correct answers. Thus teachers havebeen encouraged to praise effort when there is evidence that pupils have thought hard about
their answers.]
Adapted from Brophy (1992)

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These ten key features relate closely to the theoretical principles that view learning as
a process of construction and reconstruction as distinct from information processing.
The first feature, indicating that exploration of the pupils’ ideas should usually
precede the teachers’ formal presentation of new information, and the second
concerning the use of these ideas to focus subsequent discussion, stems from theconstructivist viewpoint that children are not empty vessels into which knowledge ispoured. Thus even in the case of a most abstract concept the pupils are likely tohave partial, if incorrect, understandings on which the teacher must build. The third
proposition regarding pupil talk and ‘teacher as a listener’ contrasts with the balanceof classroom talk during direct instruction. The third key feature also implies thatcooperative learning involving pair and group work will be a frequently used strategy.
The fourth key feature is about developing ‘metacognitive awareness’ and marks the
beginnings of the process where pupils learn to become independent thinkers. This is
the third strand of Patricia Alexander et al’s (1991) knowledge typology. The fifthcharacteristic addresses the question of authenticity in support of the proposition thatlearning is more meaningful when it can be situated in contexts with which pupils canreadily identify (Putnam and Borko 1997). The use of a variety of means and media
to promote understanding (sixth key feature) stems from Howard Gardner’s (1983)
theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner argues on the basis of his theory thatconcepts can be well understood only if pupils can represent its core features inseveral ways. Thus it is desirable that multiple modes of representation draw on anumber of intelligences. For Gardner this is not simply a case of ensuring that there
are sufficient representations to cover different pupil’s intellectual strengths but more
importantly to demonstrate the ‘intricacy’ of the subject matter.
“This tack is more than a “smorgasbord” approach to education-throw enough proverbial
matter at students, and some of it will hit the mind or brain and stick. The theory of multiple
intelligences provides an opportunity to transcend mere variation and selection. It is possible
to examine a topic in detail, to determine which intelligences, which analogies and which
examples are most likely to capture important aspects of the topic and to reach a significant
number of students” (Gardner 1999:176).

The seventh feature is related to the need for teachers to capture the pupils’ interest,
thereby, hopefully, motivating them to learn. But an added bonus in adopting thisapproach is that the learning can lead to a transformative experience, in that it does
more than add to the store of the student’s knowledge but “enables him or her to seesome aspect of the world in a new way” (Brophy 2004: 267). It follows from thisthat it is important, initially, to structure the task (eighth key feature) so that thestudent doesn’t feel that it is too demanding. This process is generally referred to as‘scaffolding’.
The ninth key feature contrasts with the approach which seeks to promote structured
thinking skills programmes. The argument here concerns the well know problem of‘transfer’ of learning (Salomon and Perkins 1989) where students often find it
problematic to apply the skills learned in one subject domain to another. On the other
hand, McGuinness (1999: 7-8) argues that when thinking skills are taught within
subjects there is a danger that “they may get lost in the midst of subject knowledgebased teaching and pupils may fail to see the connections between similar types ofthinking in different subjects.” For this reason McGuinness suggests a compromise or“middle way” whereby “contexts are first identified within the curriculum where98particular thinking skills can be developed.” Lessons are then developed where“thinking skills and topic understanding are explicitly and simultaneously pursued.”
The final key feature concerns the creating of classrooms as ‘learning communities’(Watkins 2005). In learning communities, according to Watkins, pupils equate
learning with effort and not ability, promote disciplined discourse, and share
responsibility for “knowing what needs to be known and ensuring that others knowwhat needs to be known” (Watkins 2005: 56). The result is that learning is richer andknowledge is co-constructed. To this end Watkins quotes a conversation with twoeleven-year old pupils:“Even if you learn something perfectly or are a pioneer in your area, all your work is uselessif nobody else can understand you. You might as well have done no work at all. The point oflearning is to share it with others. Lone learning is not enough.”(Watkins 2005: 57)

This seems as good a point as any at which to leave the explanation of how the six
principles that provided the framework for the SCT study were developed fromBrophy’s 10 key features of teaching for understanding. The use of this approach,however, depends on the kind of knowledge that the teacher is seeking to impart. That
is why the first of our key principles involves the use of an ‘advanced organiser’ toencourage teachers to identify the different kinds of knowledge demands they make of
their students. Thus it is not so much a polarity between the use of direct instruction
and the use of thoughtful discourse in the pursuit of understanding but a judicious
blend of both teaching approaches that are the mark of an effective classroom.
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