294 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 35, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 1992

On the Relationship of Number of Students to Academic Level

N. S. Kopeika, Senior Member, IEEE

Absfract- Increasing the number of students admitted gen- erally involves a lowering of academic standards. This can be offset by splitting classes so that there are fewer students in the classroom. Enclosed are quantitative data indicating a significant improvement in the number and percentage of graduating stu- dents. However, the qualitative improvement seems even greater.

I. INTRODUCTION FUNDAMENTAL question often debated in many uni- A versity departments is what limitations should be placed

upon the number of first-year students to be accepted. Gen- erally, increasing the number of students implies admitting more students who are somewhat less prepared. This may be convenient for administration, but poses some hard choices to educators who are intent upon maintaining a high academic level. One possible solution to this dilemma is to accept more students but to limit the number of students in the classroom by dividing the total number of students into smaller groups, and having each group lectured to separately. This may limit the financial fallout of increasing student enrollment, but is a means of ensuring a quality education.

The quantitative effect of splitting students into smaller classes may be gauged in Fig. 1. The data apply to the Depart- ment of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Absisca refer to the number of first- year students; ordinates to the number of B.Sc. graduates four years later. For example, in the 1982-1983 academic year there were 200 first-year students in our department. Of these, only 101 graduated four years later. Beginning in 1985-1986, all compulsory departmental courses were split into two more- or-less equal classes of 65-70 students each. Elective classes were not split, nor were math and physics (first-year and part of the second). The increase in the number of graduating students is from about 85 to 115, or about 30 students. Our experience is that the revenue increase from the increase in the number of graduating students more than offsets the increase in teaching expenses. However, the feedback from industry and graduate schools is that the quality of the academic level has not only not faltered, but has actually increased, even though the preparedness of many incoming students has decreased. Of course, not all of the improvement necessarily stems from a reduction in the number of students in the classroom, but it is our opinion that this is the dominating factor. This observer, as well as most of the members of this department,

Manuscript received January 1991. The author is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,

IEEE Log Number 9203275. Ben-Gunon University of the Negrev, 84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel.

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Fig. 1. Number of ECE graduates versus number of students beginning B.Sc. studies four years earlier.

have experience in American as well as Israeli universities. The give-and-take of student participation in the classroom in generally somewhat greater in Israeli universities and is a significant part of their learning experience. Increasing class size too much cuts down on this give-and-take, thus greatly decreasing the quality of their education as well as damaging the self-confidence and self-esteem of those students who are forced to leave the department for academic reasons that can be made superfluous by splitting the classes.

While it is clear from common sense that limiting class size affords more give-and-take between students and professors and affords the students more individual attention, there is a shortage of data exhibiting the extent of resulting improvement in the quality of education. Perhaps this paper will encourage others to submit their findings on this issue.

N. S. Kopeika ( S'66 -M'72- SM'79) was born in Baltimore, MD. on November 12,1944. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in 1966, 1968, and 1972, respectively. His Ph.D. dissertation, supported by a NASA Fel- lowship, dealt with detection of millimeter waves by glow discharge plasmas and the utilization of such devices for detection and recording of millimeter wave holograms.

In 1973, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ben- Gurion University -of the Negev, Beer- Sheva, Israel, where he is Professor and currently Department Chairman. During 1978- 1979, he was Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark. His research interests

0018-9359/92/1100-$03.00 0 1992 IEEE

KOPEIKA: NUMBER OF STUDENTS TO ACADEMIC LEVEL 295

include atmospheric optics, effects of surface phenomena on optoelectric de- vice properties, optical communication, electronic properties of plasmas, laser breakdown of gases, the optogalvanic effect, electromagnetic wave-plasma interaction in various portions of the EM spectrum, and utilization of such phenomena in EM wave detectors and photopreionization lasers. He has published over 80 joumal papers in the above areas. He has been particularly active in research of time response and impedance of plasma properties. In addition, he is the author of a general unified theory to explain EM wave-plasma interactions across the electromagnetic spectrum. His earlier published work on the optogalvanic effect preceded the naming of the effect. He has also done extensive work on the wavelength dependence of image resolution through the open atmosphere, particularly with regard to

spatial coherence degradation and spatial frequency dependence resulting from forward light scattering by relatively large airbom particulates. He has actively contributed to the development of postfabrication techniques for wavelength tuning of semiconductor light sources via extemal means involving surface effects and towards utilization of effects to improve photodiode quantum efficiency and surface uniformity of response. Recently, he has contributed to the characterizing of the open atmosphere in terms of a modulation transfer function (MTF) with which to describe the effects of weather on image propagation. He often teaches tutorials on the topic as well as others concerned with image system analysis at SPIE Symposia.

Dr. Kopeika is a member of SPIE, the Optical Society of America, and the Laser and Electrooptics Society of Israel.