Class Size and Student Performance in a Team-Based Learning Course

High-enrollment university courses can be associated with decreased student learning and course satisfaction. In these large classes, students report feelings of isolation, reduced faculty interaction, and less motivation. Here we address whether team-based learning (TBL), a highly interactive and collaborative form of active learning, can improve the student experience in larger undergraduate neuroscience courses. Specifically, we analyzed student performance on summative assessments, as well as survey responses on measures of the classroom environment from a single TBL course, taught over a range of enrollment sizes (19-103 students). While the higher enrollment course terms had decreased ratings of course quality compared to the lower enrollment terms, we also found that student performance on exams was similar across all course term sizes. Furthermore, we observed no differences across class sizes for most measures of classroom dynamics and course characteristics. Taken together, our data suggest that the content knowledge outcomes and many aspects of the classroom environment were not negatively impacted in the higher enrollment versions of this TBL course.