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Does class size matter in postgraduate education?
Author(s) -
Gaggero Alessio,
Haile Getinet
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the manchester school
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.361
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1467-9957
pISSN - 1463-6786
DOI - 10.1111/manc.12305
Subject(s) - regression discontinuity design , class size , class (philosophy) , exploit , mathematics education , econometrics , population , economics , psychology , statistics , mathematics , computer science , sociology , demography , artificial intelligence , computer security
The paper examines the impact of class size on postgraduate (PG) grades using administrative data from one of the largest Schools of a Russell Group University in the UK. As well as estimating fixed effects models on the population of PG candidates in the School, we exploit a policy change aimed at reducing class size to implement a regression discontinuity design. We find that class size does impact overall grades adversely; and the policy aimed at reducing class size impacts grades favourably. Our findings are robust to alternative specifications as well as being supported by the validity tests we conducted.