GROUP BEHAVIOR I47 



The numbers in the smaller classes usually ranged 

 from twenty-one to thirty, but in some classes 

 dropped as low as twelve; in the larger classes there 

 were usually thirty -five to seventy-nine students; in 

 the largest, one hundred and sixty-nine. Under the 

 conditions which prevailed in these classes in psy- 

 chology, educational psychology and physics, the stu- 

 dents in the larger class sections made slightly but 

 significantly higher final grades than those in smaller 

 sections of the same subject taught by the same 

 instructor. 



So much for objective experiments. It happens 

 that subjective estimates, made both by teachers and 

 by students at Minnesota, favor the smaller rather 

 than the larger classes. It was even true that the 

 students were better satisfied with the marks re- 

 ceived in smaller classes than they were with the 

 slightly higher grades given them in the larger sec- 

 tions. 



The general attitude seemed somewhat like that 

 toward a friend of mine who teaches general mathe- 

 matics at Purdue University. He is an experienced 

 and excellent teacher. His program for one semester 

 required that he should meet a normal-sized class 

 of thirty to thirty-five at eight o'clock, and that at 

 nine o'clock he should meet a class of double the size 

 in a larger room, to repeat the same subject matter. 



