at the class or school level however weaker or disadvantaged students are often intentionally grouped and placed in smaller classes so that they receive more individual attention at the school level therefore the observed relationship between class size and student achievement is often positive suggesting that students in larger classes perform better than students in smaller classes at higher levels of aggregation the relationship between student achievement and class size is further confounded by the socioeconomic intake of individual schools or by factors relating to the learning culture in different countries therefore to interpret the indicators it is important to fully understand the relationships between them