Person-Environment Fit in Open Classrooms

Considerable prior research into the effects of classroom openness on student cognitive achievement has produced inconclusive or conflicting results. A person- environment fit framework is proposed in which student preferences for classroom openness are considered simultaneously with actual openness. A sample of 285 junior high school students provided continuous scores representing their preferred and actual classroom openness along the five distinct dimensions of personalization, participation, independence, investigation, and differentiation. Results replicated previous studies in that actual openness variables accounted for a small and nonsignificant amount of variance in cognitive achievement. But actual-preferred interactions accounted for a more substantial and statistically significant amount of achievement variance. Findings suggest that in open settings person-environment cogruence could be more important than openness per se.