What doesn't work well at very small scale?

[marshwiggle]

This was inspired by discussions about tiny institutions closing. The argument is consistently made that the "personalized attention" of these places is one of their great strengths. However, it occured to me that there are some things that don't work well when the size is too small.

For instance:

• Infrastructure for labs, etc. is expensive, and is not feasible when it will only be used by a few people for a few hours a year.
• Class discussions actually work best with more than a handful of people. In a very small group, the same people will always dominate.
• Group projects are useful in some situations, and having choices in group membership is an important part of the process.
• Extracurricular activities need enough people to make them viable.
• Labs and project work generate interactions between students in different groups. When there are a very small number of groups, this is less effective.
• Pedagogical diversity; if all courses within a discipline are taught by the same person, then there is only one approach students see.
  

Are there other things which are less effective when the numbers are very small? Or is the "ideal" education a one-to-one interaction between student and teacher?

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Are there other things which are less effective when the numbers are very small?

1) Any field with a lot of "branching" into specialised niches after first year(s). E.g. a class of 90 people can be subdivided into 6 concentrations of 15 people after receiving a common foundation courses. Class of 5 cannot.
This leads to either:
- everybody receiving the same concentration
- "pseudo"-majors without any high-level courses at all (often making graduates nearly unemployable in their field)

2) Field-specific employers may not bother to come to /advertise on / take interns from a campus with few majors in the field.

[mahagonny]

Interesting question, but as an aside: very big departments and schools have a downside too. Students get lost in the shuffle, there's no one that everybody knows except a few with showmanship and charisma or so overachieving they can't be ignored. The college is too well known for its own good, thinks too much about its identity, influence and 'brand' (read: groupthink norms, attitudes.)

[polly_mer]

Groupthink is much, much easier with only a handful of people than with many people who come from various backgrounds and there's a healthy influx of new and visiting people regularly.

If you're worried about groupthink, then hang out with the three people who have been together for decades and are sure that whatever was true twenty years ago is still true.  Waiting out that annoying newcomer who is likely to be gone in two years is a tried and true strategy for a fossiled, tiny place.

It's much harder to get true groupthink in a large enough place that it's the same 20 people who have been whapping at each other for decades.  They may have all bought into the Fabulous Place brand, but that's not the same as the fossilized groupthink from a tiny place.

[spork]

IT infrastructure and staff.

[dismalist]

Those damned fixed costs!

[apl68]

IT infrastructure and staff.

Good grief, yes! 

All sorts of costs are greater than they once were--IT, facilities, compliance administration, etc.  All of which penalizes any institution not large enough to have economies of scale.

[Caracal]

• Class discussions actually work best with more than a handful of people. In a very small group, the same people will always dominate.

It can go both ways. If you have a small class where almost all of the students are engaged, discussions can be great. The problem comes if you have a class of 8 people, and only two people ever say anything.

[mamselle]

Interesting question, but as an aside: very big departments and schools have a downside too. Students get lost in the shuffle, there's no one that everybody knows except a few with showmanship and charisma or so overachieving they can't be ignored. The college is too well known for its own good, thinks too much about its identity, influence and 'brand' (read: groupthink norms, attitudes.)

My BA from OSU was delightful because, on that huge campus, there were so many interesting sub-groups that it was never boring.

I could be in the ice skating club; take theater, music, dance, and art history courses from very good people; usher for touring plays like "Superstar," that came to the school; and meet people who had lived and worked in India for a year, designed antennae used in Antarctica, and danced with Twyla Tharp.

The large populations on such campuses, in the best of situations, break down into smaller groups. One finds or makes a richer identity--or even several facets of one's core identity--that way.

Most unlike the tiny nearby high school where people mocked you for carrying your books home to study from and hated you because they believed that your working hard on difficult subjects drove up the grading curve and was meant to hurt them.

On the other hand, that small school also had good teachers, good programs, and a sense of focus and purpose of its own.

I'd say there are trade-offs in both situations, and probably all along the continuum.

I don't think you can polarize them into good/bad dyads.

M.