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HOW CLASSROOM SIZES COMPARE HOW CLASSROOM SIZES COMPARE Average class size for primary grades in seven countries in 2004: Russian Federation: 16 Italy: 18 Germany: 22 France: 231 United States: 23 United Kingdom: 24 Japan: 29 1 -- Reference year is 2003 rather than 2004 (Data include public and private institutions to ensure comparability among nations. Special needs programs have been excluded.) Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development NEW YORK  Breaking up large classes into several smaller ones helps students, but the improvements in many cases come in spite of what teachers do, new research suggests. New findings from four nations, including the USA, tell a curious story. Small classes work for children, but that's less because of how teachers teach than because of what students feel they can do: Get more face time with their teacher, for instance, or work in small groups with classmates. "Small classes are more engaging places for students because they're able to have a more personal connection with teachers, simply by virtue of the fact that there are fewer kids in the classroom competing for that teacher's attention," says Adam Gamoran of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who analyzed the findings. The data, from the USA, England, Hong Kong and Switzerland, were presented Monday at the first day of the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting, the world's largest gathering of education researchers. The findings are consistent with what researchers already know, Gamoran says. "There is not good evidence that teachers modify their instruction in response to changes in class size. Some teachers are taking advantage of small classes and others are not. There's a lot of variability." Though two of the four studies were inconclusive, some point to promising trends. In one study, researchers closely watched students' behaviors in 10-second intervals throughout class periods and found that in smaller classes in both elementary and high school, students stayed more focused and misbehaved less. They also had more direct interactions with teachers and worked more in small groups rather than by themselves. But overall, Gamoran says, teachers didn't necessarily take advantage of the smaller classes, often teaching as if in front of a larger group. In one study, researchers found that few teachers took the opportunity to incorporate motivational activities or demonstrate to students what they wanted them to do as they introduced a lesson. "It's not like you reduce classes so teachers do something different and achievement is higher," he says. "That neat little package doesn't exist." One of the teams, led by Ronald Ehrenberg of Cornell University, notes that the potential benefits of class-size reduction "may be greater than what we observe" if only a few teachers change their teaching to accommodate the smaller group. For more than two decades, class-size reduction has been a key improvement strategy in several states, most notably in California, which since 1996 has spent billions of dollars to ensure that students get small classes in primary grades. Smaller classes also have been endorsed by teachers unions, but recent findings have cast doubts on the idea, in California and elsewhere. This month, researchers at Northwestern University released data from a long-term class-size reduction effort in Tennessee showing that smaller classes improve achievement overall, but they seem to benefit high-achieving students more than low achievers. Because low-income students are more likely to be low achievers, researchers say, the effort is doing little to reduce the stubborn "achievement gap" that it intended to eradicate. Enlarge By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY Students line up for Mandarin class after recess in San Francisco. Small classes help students, but teachers don't always take advantage of it, experts say. Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map.