Academic Achievement and Attendance in an Open School

The purpose of this study was to compare students' achievement and attendance in an open school setting with those in a traditional setting. 80 fourth grade students of low socio-economic status were randomly selected, 40 from an open school and 20 from each of two traditional schools in rural Madison County, Georgia. The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills served as a measure of academic achievement. Reading, language, mathematics, and composite scores as well as the number of days absent were obtained. Analysis of variance showed significant but mixed findings: differences in total language ( p < .01), total mathematics ( p < .01), and total composite ( p < .05) favored the open school and 1 traditional school but more total days absent ( p < .01) were reported for the two traditional schools. Percentage of variance accounted for was 15% or less for academic scores, 24% for attendance. Implications for further research were discussed.