For the past two years a survey has been conducted of over 20 junior high school, high school, and college social science courses in order to describe the interrelationships among a number of factors believed to related to classroom achievement. These factors include age and grade level, academic ability, self-concept, personality, and characteristics of the learning environment. It is assumed that both student and course characteristics affect achievement in a course by means of individual and combined effects on the quality and quantity of autonomous learning that students engage in, both in and outside of class. This paper focuses on those aspects of the learning environment that appear to limit student engagement in these activities. Specific focus is on those features that appear to impede engagement in the kinds of activities that are associated with learning and achievement in courses at this level. The courses were analyzed in terms of their demands, supports, compensations, and net demands. Information was gathered regarding course characteristics, student's study activities, and indices of students' academic achievement. Findings are based on: (1) information capacity demands; (2) reading ability demands; (3) verbatum, comprehension, integration and retrieval demands; and (4) stress conditions. Indices of student academic achievement were grades earned at the end of the unit exam, and final course grades. Results of an analysis of the data are displayed in tables pertaining to each of the demand conditions. (JD)