Beginning with the fall 1983 semester, a set of behavioristic principles was incorporated into the classroom management techniques used in the high school completion and general educational development (GED) programs offered at the South Dade Adult Education Center in Homestead, Florida. A study examined the effectiveness of these principles in reducing the student attrition rate by comparing course withdrawal data on 102 students who had participated in the GED program before the behaviorist techniques were instituted with data on 116 students who enrolled in the program in three different quarters after the new classroom management principles were in place. The student withdrawal rate for the 1982-1983 school year (before the new behavioristic approach was adopted) was 36 percent. After the new approach was instituted, the withdrawal rate decreased to 21 percent, thereby attaining a full 15 percent reduction of the previous year's rate. The change in classroom management techniques was determined to have yet another favorable outcome. Students attending classes in which the new principles were used actually recruited new students for the following term. It was concluded that the new behaviorist principles were effective because they helped students perceive themselves as part of a group (the principle of operant reinforcement through social facilitation), increased students' desire to excel by providing them with positive feedback on a regular basis, and reduced students' test-taking anxieties (through application of principles of extinction). (MN)