Compared were children's reflective behavior in the classroom to their reflective behavior in individual environments. Examined were three environmental variables in terms of the way each affected reflective behavior in children. The variables are (1) report card grades vs. no grades for performance, (2) individual vs. classroom environment, and (3) dialogue with an adult vs. written test conditions. Results of testing showed that even though children differed in reflectivity within a testing condition, children taking written tests were in general more reflective than children tested under dialogue conditions. It was concluded that it would be unwise for educators or researchers to directly compare problem-solving scores obtained in different test environments. Also, teacher-student dialogue appears to be a particularly difficult environment for children working on complex problems. This rapid communications system apparently serves to discourage children from processing information sufficiently and therefore from solving complex problems. (BL)