Predicting Class Learning An Approach to the Class as a Social System

This is one of a series of studies based upon Getzels' and Thelen's (1960) theoretical model of the class as a social system. The GetzelsThelen model holds that, in school classes, personality needs, roleexpectations, and classroom climate interact and predict group behavior including class learning. In previous work we investigated the influence of the teacher's personality on classroom climate (Walberg, 1969B) and learning (Walberg, Welch, and Rothman, 1968), the influence of student characteristics on classroom climate (Walberg and Anderson, 1968B) and the influence of climate on learning with classes and students as the units of analysis (Anderson and Walberg, 1968; Walberg and Anderson, 1968A). The interested reader is referred to these earlier writings for a more extensive description of the model and some empirical tests of it. The purposes of the present study are to replicate the work on the effects of classroom climate on learning and to investigate some hypotheses concerning the effects of student biographical characteristics, personality, and intelligence on learning for the class as a whole. Therefore, the unit of analysis is the