Formal and informal classroom settings: effects on hyperactivity.

The behavior of hyperactive children was compared to controls in two different classroom settings. One setting (Informal) involved choice and variety of tasks; the other setting (Formal) involved teacher specification of a small number of tasks. As assessed by a composite observational measure of hyperactivity, there were significant differences between the hyperactive and control groups in the Formal but not in the Informal setting. Analyses of five individual categories of hyperactive behavior showed that, with one exception, the hyperactive group tended to display higher frequencies of behavior than did controls in both settings. For two of the categories, the difference between the groups was significantly larger in the Formal than in the Informal setting. Finally, a modified observational code was suggested that differentiated hyperactives from controls equally in the two settings.