The purpose of this study was to find, if schoolwork is accomplished when their are friends in class. Twenty high school students were observed throughout a two weeks time span to see how much schoolwork was accomplished when they had friends within their classes.
At the end of the two weeks the ten students who were in classes with friends had gotten the same amount of work completed as the students who were in classes with no frieends, but they did not all complete it in the classroom, and it was not as high quality. The ten students that had no friends in their classes had payed more attention to the teacher and their work was of higher quality.

A. INTRODUCTION

People tend to think that having friends is good. They add fun to the good times in life, and help you through the bad times. In the teenage years especially, the importance of friends cannot be overstated, although sometimes can have negative consequences, as in the infamous “peer pressure.” Empirical studies have substantiated these beliefs in part. Gagner (2) suggest that todays high school teachers tend to want their students to place close attention to what their teacher is talking about. Anselm (1) said, that what some teachers do not understand is that some high school students can socialize with friends and still complete the required work. Raymond (4) says that when friends are asked to do a job together such as folding laundry they get the job done, but was not accomplished as neatly as it would have been if their was only one person doing the job. Paulette (3) had found that the only setback to friends being in class together is that work is not as high of quality. That is the consequence of not paying attention and if the student would rather be social than get good grades that is their own choice and they will just have to suffer in their grades and the other benefits that people get for getting good grades.
These studies suggest that when teenagers have friends in class they complete the work that is required of them, but it is not of high quality as the work would be if they had no friends in class. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of having friends in class with accomplishing schoolwork.

B. METHOD

1. Subjects

Ss were 20 high school students enrolled at Matron High School in Ramy, New Jersey.

2. Measuring Instruments

a. Grade Point Average. The school produces a GPA for every student every quarter.
b. Sociogram. Each person chosen for this experiment picked three of their best friends one of which would be chosen to go in their class.

3. Procedure

During the first quarter at Matron High School 20 random students were chosen with GPA’s of no lower than 3.2. Ten of the randomly selected teenagers were then asked to choose three of their best friends and put their names on a piece of paper. Which then one of the three friends were selected to go in one of their classes with them for two weeks. They had been observed by a counselor and had the teacher make comments on how each one of them performed during the class. This observation had gone on from Monday thru Thursday for two weeks. The other Ten students were observed by the same counselor and teacher for two weeks, Monday thru Thursday.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

All ten of the teenagers that had friends in their classroom with them did not have as good of grades that the other ten students without friends in their classroom had. The ten students with no friends in their classroom had also showed more interest to the topic being taught and had payed more attention to what the teacher had to say. The ten students with friends in their classes had continually talked and did not show as much interest to the subject.

REFERENCES

1. Anselm, H. J. Todays Teens. Boston: Randholm Books, 1988.
2. Gagner, B. L. Schools alive. New York: Yeller Books, 1967.
3. Paulette, K. P. Junkstown Teens School. New York: Grang Books, 1978
4. Raymond, D. M. Lewisville Teachers. Boston: Bantam Books, 1986
Department of Learning Abilities
Goodwin University
84028 JHYDC
Chuckville, Maine 23275

¹ Recieved in the editorial office on April 2, 2000 and published immedaitly at Hicktown, Maine. Copyright by The Journal Crew.

² This experiment was supported in part by a Workers Research Assembly granted to Grahm J. Carman and Mandy H. Johnson by Halestown University.

³ Requests for reprints should be sent to the second author at the address shown at the end of this article