Improvement of schooling and the search for ways to improve school effectiveness cont nue to be popular endeavors among educators, as they strive to meet the demands of educating America's youth. These endeav ors have apparently yielded less success at the secondary school level than at the elementary level. a recent Phi Delta Kappan, Eleanor Far rar, vice president of the Huron Institute, said In general, school reformers have bypassed the more complicated secondary schools. She continued by saying Consequently, there hasn't been much change in high schools, and there hasn't been much improvement (Murphy, Phi Delta Kappan, 1983). Recent efforts to improve school effectiveness, brought to the forefront in large measure by the new accountability movement, have invariably led to a con sideration of time as an influencing variable. Research ers may disagree on the best ways to evaluate the influ ence of this variable, but little disagreement exists con cerning the notion that time is crucial (Salmon, 1982). Concern about the purported importance of time, coupled with the relative lack of research in a secondary school setting, led to the following questions: 1. Do relationships exist between student achieve ment gains and selected time-related variables at the secondary level? 2. Do relationships exist between student attitude changes and selected time-related variables at the secondary level? Review of related research. Effective schools tend to characteristically demonstrate allegiance to several fac tors which make a difference in effective instruction. Edmonds (1982), in an overview of effective schooling research, listed five characteristics of effective schools: