The Effects of Modeling and Classroom Organization on the Personal Space of Third and Fourth Grade Children 1

This study assessed the effects of modeling and classroom organization, open and traditional, on the personal space of third and fourth grade boys and girls. The sample was composed of 80 students selected from the third and fourth grades from an elementary school with open classroom organization, and a like number selected from a traditional elementary school. In addition, one half of the students from each school viewed a video tape in which a teacher and two students interacted in a proximate teaching situation, while the remaining one half of the students viewed the same teacher and students in a distant teaching situation. The results indicated that open classroom students reported smaller interpersonal distances to specific individuals than traditional classroom students. Also, exposure to the proximate modeled teaching session significantly decreased the subject’s personal space, whereas the distant modeled teaching sessions exhibited little influence on the interpersonal distances.