Are Open-Space High Schools more Open?

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the following questions: Is the learning climate more in space or traditional high schools? Is the problem-attack behavior of principals more frequent in open-space or traditional schools? Is the learning climate related to the principal's problem-attack behavior? The learning cli mate was found more open in the open-space schools on four of the twenty dimensions. No differences in prob lem-attack behavior were found between the principals in open-space and traditional schools. There was a positive relationship between the learning climate and problem-attack behavior scores. OPEN-SPACE high schools are built on the assumption that the learning climate is more and students have more freedom to learn. The as sumptions are strong enough to influence school administrators to build more open-design schools each year. By definition an open-space school is a facility in which the visual and acoustical separa tion between teacher stations is limited or elimi nated and the staff is organized for instruction using team-teaching and flexible scheduling. Considering the number of open-space schools being constructed, it is surprising how little we know about the impact of the open-space school on the people within it. Wertheimer (11), a staff member during the first year of the open-space John Adams High School at Portland, OR, ex pressed this lack of knowledge and the complexity of the factors of the open-space high school by stating, <(the list (factors) could go on intermina bly. It now seems to me that tve may have viewed climate too simplistically and may have counted too heavily on its influence to solve learning problems/9 In spite of the heightened interest and activity, knowledge about the influence of the open-design school on the behavior of the principal and the learning climate remains an assumption. To in vestigate this assumption the present study was undertaken. The major purposes of the study were as follows :