Tag Archives: honors class sizes

How Many of Those Honors Classes are Restricted to Honors Students Only?

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Editor’s Note: Thanks to honors Deans and Directors from across the country, we received more data than ever before in 2016. Most of the data appear in our new book, but periodically we will report on other discoveries that we did not have time to include.

We have written about honors classes several times, having reported on average class sizes and the various types of honors class sections–honors seminars, honors-only classes in the disciplines, mixed honors classes (honors and non-honors students), and contract sections, in which honors students do extra work in a regular class for honors credit.

Before presenting data that show the percentage of class work honors students do in the various class types, here is a brief recap on the average class sizes of honors sections, based on actual, detailed data from 50 major honors programs:

  • Honors-only class section size= 19.0 students
  • Mixed sections for honors credit= 51.1 students
  • Contract sections for honors credit= 60.1 students
  • OVERALL average size of class sections for honors credit= 26.3 students

But now for the additional, unpublished data.

Since class sizes vary significantly according to the type of class section, here is a summary of the percentage of classroom time that honors students spend in the different section types:

  • In 22 of the 50 programs we rated, all honors credit sections were “honors-only” sections (no mixed or contract sections).
  • Across all 50 programs, 83.1% of enrollment time was in honors-only sections.
  • 13.6% of enrollment time was in mixed sections that included both honors and non-honors students. Many of these sections had separate honors-only breakout or lab components.
  • The remaining 5.1% of enrollment time was in contract sections, in which students in regular classes had to complete extra work for honors credit.

Honors-only classes may be seminars that are generally interdisciplinary, or more discipline-specific classes.

  • Our findings show that 45.8% of honors-only classes are seminars are interdisciplinary sections, which are typically offered through the honors college or program itself.
  • The remaining 54.2% of honors-only classes are centered on the academic disciplines, many offered directly by the academic departments.