Impact of Class Size and Students’ Academic Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Kwimba District Council, Mwanza –Tanzania

Abstract

This study sought to explore the impacts of class size and students’ academic performance in Kwimba District in Mwanza, Tanzania. The objectives were to examine the negative effects of class size on students’ academic performance, and the challenges teachers face in managing large class sizes to enhance students’ performance in public secondary schools in Kwimba District. The researcher adopted Constructivist Learning Theory and Socio-constructivist to guide the study. Also, it used a mixed research approach in a convergent parallel design to collate and analyze data from the field. In the same vein, the researcher used interviews and questionnaires to get data from the participants. To seek validity and reliability, the instruments were examined through a split-half system to get 0.82 correlation co-efficiency which validated the data collection tools. The process involved both quantitative and qualitative data which later were presented and analyzed through the aid of SPSS. The researcher analyzed qualitative data through content analysis by assigning data into themes, categories, integration, and summarization of the findings for report writing. In examining the negative effects of class size, findings indicated that big or small class size has an impact on students’ performance and students do not perform well in big classes as it caused resources to be inadequate, lowers student performance, and ineffective classroom instructions. Also, the study ascertained the challenges teachers encountered in big class sizes, the result showed there are ineffective instruction in the classroom, failure to manage the class effectively and disruption of students in the teaching and learning process.