POSITIVE SOCIAL INTERDEPENDENCE AND CLASSROOM CLIMATE

We explored the relationship between student perceptions of social int erdependence and social support. Attitudinal responses to the Classroo m Life Instrument (Johnson & Johnson, 1983; Johnson, Johnson, & Anders on, 1983; Johnson, Johnson, Buckman, & Richards, 1985) were gathered i n Canada from four classes totaling 123 eighth-grade students learning geometry in cooperative groups. We extended previous findings by exam ining the relationships among the classroom climate variables, causal attributions, and achievement, and explored the consistency among the four classroom climate studies using statistical methods for meta-anal ysis to determine overall effect magnitudes and the degree of study-to -study variability. Social support from the teacher and fellow student s was moderately related to perceptions of positive interdependence, b ut social interdependence factors were less important predictors of st udent learning than was student self-esteem.