381

Higher Education 8 (1979) 381-394

O ElsevierScientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands I N D I V I D U A L D I F F E R E N C E S IN S T U D Y P R O C E S S E S AND THE QUALITY OF LEARNING OUTCOMES

JOHN BIGGS
FaculO' of Education, University of Newcastle, New South Wales, 2308, Australia

ABSTRACT

This paper is concerned with the relationship between students' study processes and the structural complexity of their learning. Study processes are conceived in terms of three independent dimensions - utilising, internalising and achieving - each of which has a cognitive (strategic) and an affective (motivational) component; these are assessed by the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ). Learning quality is expressed in terms of the complexity of the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome by applying the SOLO Taxonomy described below. A preliminary study involving 60 undergraduates' responses to education research abstracts is described, in which SOI7,O levels and short and Ionw term retention of factual material are related to their study processes.

Introduction S t u d e n t learning m a y be c o n c e i v e d ill t e r m s o f tile three stages o f input, process and o u t p u t . I n p u t variables would include c u r r i c u l u m c o n t e n t and o t h e r f e a t u r e s in the teaching c o n t e x t : process variables the ways a particular s t u d e n t has o f going a b o u t selecting and learning f r o m the i n p u t ; and o u t p u t variables the q u a l i t y and q u a n t i t y o f s u b s e q u e n t p e r f o r m a n c e . While all these variables are d e e p l y i n t e r c o n n e c t e d , researchers have t y p i c a l l y f o u n d it c o n v e n i e n t to c o n c e n t r a t e u p o n one or o t h e r specific area. The present w r i t e r has been i n t e r e s t e d in two originally i n d e p e n d e n t areas: s t u d y processes (Biggs, 1 9 7 8 a ) and a t a x o n o m y o f learning q u a l i t y (Biggs, 1978b). T h e p r e s e n t p a p e r r e p r e s e n t s an a t t e m p t to inter-relate these areas, f o l l o w i n g tile w o r k o f M a r t o n ( 1 9 7 6 ; M a r t o n and S/ilia5, 1976). In general, it is p o s t u l a t e d that the s t u d y processes used b y a s t u d e n t d u r i n g learning will be related to b o t h the a m o u n t learned, and the q u a l i t y o f his learning. A l t h o u g h such a relationship seems obvious, there have been r e m a k a b l y few a t t e m p t s to s u b s t a n t i a t e it, and m o r e specifically, to describe the n a t u r e o f tile relationship.

382 Students' Study Processes Research into students' study processes may be classified into two main kinds: (1) relatively large scale studies in which students are grouped according to general characteristics, frequently assessed by self-report inventories (e.g. Entwistle and Wilson, 1977): and (2) more intensive experimental or observational studies of students learning in situ (e.g. Marton and S/ilj/5, 1976). The two kinds of study are complementary; the present work belongs in the first category, but with some conceptual debts owing to the second. It is assumed, in the first or nomothetic tradition, that by tertiary level, students have developed fairly stable motives for learning and strategies of going about learning. It is usually assumed, further, that these motives and strategies arise both out of a variety of personal characteristics, and out of exposure to particular situational requirements, such as course contents, methods of teaching and examining, career opportunities, etc. (Biggs, 1978a). These assumptions underlie the use of self report questionnaires for assessing study-related parameters, including the writer's Study Process Questionnaire. In the most recent version of the SPQ, three dimensions of study process are distinguished, and each dimension has an affective (motivational) and a cognitive (strategy) component, with the strategy involving the behavioural realisation of the motive. The coincidences of motive and strategy are obtained from several second-order factor analyses (Biggs, 1978a), and are as follows: 1. Utilising. Affectively, there are two inter-related motives: pragmatic reasons for being at university (such as to obtain a paper qualification and hence a better job), with a more immediate negative motive of avoiding failure, seen in relatively high levels of test anxiety. In the absence of any more positive reasons for studying, study strategies are centred around avoiding failure, but doing as little work as possible. Hence the student becomes syllabus-bound: he studies only what he has to, and then with a view to fairly accurate reproduction, rather than to transformation and internalisation of the original. 2. Internalising. The affective component is intrinsic: the student has chosen to go to university as his way of self-actualising, and he is interested in the subject matter of study for its own sake. He therefore reads widely, beyond set texts (indeed he may not even read the set text): he is syllabusfree. He attempts to inter-relate material)that he reads, placing it in an overall conceptual framework that is meaningful to him. Although this is the "academic" approach to study, it is likely to be successful only if there is reasonable overlap between the student's self-set learnings and those prescribed by the lecturer. 3. Achieving. The motivational component revolves around winning, in a competitive context, and in general achieving the hallmarks of exellence.

383 Cognitive strategies are therefore directed toward obtaining high grades for their own sake, and include high organization, scheduling of study periods, ensuring assignments are completed on time, and in general a cool systematic approach to study. These dimensions take into account the three motives most commonly ascribed to students - extrinsic, intrinsic and achievement - and o n ' t h e cognitive side, to the most commonly observed ways that students go about studying. Matron (1976) for instance distinguishes surface level from deep level processing of material. In surface level processing the student is concerned with reproducing the signs of learning - i.e. the words used in the original text - rather than mastering w h a t is s i g n i f i e d - i.e. the meaning of the word strings. Surface level learning is clearly similar to the cognitive component of utilising: and indeed, to complete the picture, Fransson (1977) found that test anxious students are prone to adopt surface processing. There are also clear parallels between deep level processing and internalising; and again Fransson notes the coincidence between deep level processing and expressed interest. Achieving as a dimension of study relates to quite a different line of research. The cognitive aspect relates to research into study skills (e.g. Brown and Holzman, 1955: Robinson, 1961): and the affective component finds its roots in need achievement theory (Atkinson, 1966). The coincidence here of motive and strategy has fewer precedents in previous research but it is empirically demonstrable as well as psychologically plausible. Another interesting correspondence is with the model of Das et al. (1975), who propose three dimensions of information processing on the basis of Luria's model of cerebral functioning, viz. successive processing, simultaneous processing and planning. It is tempting to argue that these latter dimensions form the genotypes of those phenotypically revealed in studying as utilising, internalising and achieving, respectively. In the current version of the SPQ, then, individual scores may be contained both on the three main utilising, internalising and achieving scales, and if required, on each of the six motivational and strategic components. Thus, while the SPQ dimensions may not exhaustively map the study process domain, they do seem to offer a parsimonious and theoretically coherent model for conceptualising the more important ways in which students may feel about, and behave towards, their study. Further, since the model consists of three orthogonal dimensions, it allows for the fact that students may, depending on their score profile, have mixed motives and multiple strategies: some students may, for instance, be motivated intrinsically, as well as by the ego-enhancement of high grades.

384 The Evaluation of Student Learning The second focus of this research is on the evaluation o f learning. Learning may be evaluated in terms both of quantiO' (e.g. the number of correct points made, the amount of material remembered, norm-referencing, etc.) and of quality (whether the points made inter-relate, are original, "elegance" of solution, etc.). However, as Marton (1976) points out, most research and practice has concentrated on the quantitative aspects of learning, with a neglect of a t t e m p t s to assess learning quality. Indeed, practically speaking, the assessment of quality has been highly subjective. Evaluations are usually derived and applied according to a purely private calculus, the workings of which might be clear to the individual marker, but are sometimes difficult to communicate, particularly to the student concerned, and expressed in loosely structured comments. The Bloom T a x o n o m y (Bloom et al., 1956) is probably the best-known systematic attempt to provide a structure for assessing levels of learning quality, but this remains at best an a priori model that does not necessarily reflect the psychogenesis of good learning. The Bloom T a x o n o m y is, in any case, used more for structuring questions or multiple-choice answers, than evaluating open-ended questions. Marton ( 1976; Marton and S~lj~5, 1976) distinguishes qualitative levels of learning in terms of what the student himself construes of the structure of the particular material to be learned, so that the levels are unique "to each learning event. The lowest levels comprise a restatement of the question, or denial of the point: the highest levels a faithful rephrasing and elaboration of a key relating concept in the passage to be learned. Marton's approach has its roots in existential psychology and focuses upon the here-and-now of the particular learning situation. There is, however, an interesting coincidence between his notion of levels and the present writer's work in quite a different context. This work concerned the application of Piagetian psychology to the classroom (Collis and Biggs, 1976). Following the work of Peel and his students (Peel, 1971), we were initially interested in gathering examples of pre-operational, concrete and formal thinking in different schools subjects, with the main purpose of providing teachers with examples of such thought in their different subject areas. Out of this work a t a x o n o m y evolved which seemed to coincide with a generalised version of Marton's notmn of levels and seemed to provide a means of measuring learning quality. We called this the SOLO T a x o n o m y because it refers to the Structure o f the Observed Learning O u t c o m e (Biggs, 1978b). The T a x o n o m y consists of five levels of response and is most easily applied to learning the meaning of a finite display of information and making judgments about that information - a piece of prose, a map, a moral dilemma, a poem, a mathematical problem, etc. - (see Biggs, 1978b, and
9 )

385 Collis and Biggs, in preparation, for a fuller description). The five levels are: 1. Pre-stnlctural. The response has no logical relationship to the display, being based on inability to comprehend, tautology or idiosyncratic relevance. 2. Uni-structural. The response contains one relevant item from the display, but misses others that might modify or contradict the response. There is a rapid closure that oversimplifies the isstie. 3. Multi-structural. The response contains several relevant items,-but only those that are consistent with the chosen conchlsion are stated. Closure is selective and premature. 4. Relatio,zal. Most or all of the relevant data are used, and conflicts resolved by the use of a relating concept that applies to the given context of the display, which leads to a firm conclusion. 5. Extended abstract. The context is seen only as one instance of a general case. Questioning o f basic assumptions, counter examples and new data are often given that did not form part of the original display. Consequently a firm closure is often seen to be inappropriate. In addition, transitional responses may be found in which elements of the next level may appear, for instance a 2A response (transitional between uni- and multi-structural) would contain two contradictory items with a consequent weak or confused conclusion. These five levels seem to form a hierarchy of learning that corresponds to the developmental hierarchy described by Piaget, but is logically distinct from the latter. We are concerned here only with describing the structural complexity of a t2articular response to a learning situation. The SOLO T a x o n o m y is functionally closer to the Bloom T a x o n o m y , and especially to Marton's categorisation o f particular learnings (see particularly those outlined in Marton and S~ilj6, 1976) than" to developmental stages; and indeed it was discussions with Mart0n and his colleagues that led the writer to make this minor, but nevertheless important, paradigm shift away from the Piagetian framework. On the other hand, the SOLO levels have a wider generality than Marton's task-specific classifications. The SOLO T a x o n o m y has been applied to several school subject areas, inchiding mathematics, English, history, geography, reading skills and modern languages, and at the tertiary level to literature and educational psychology. The last area is that used in the following study, and to illustrate the T a x o n o m y some (edited) examples will be discussed below. In one task, an abstract of an experiment on the induction of Nazism in a high school classroom was given to a class of undergraduate Education students. The abstract described how the teacher, Mr Jones, applied procedures over a five day period that produced high conformity to arbitrary regulations, with spontaneous reporting of non-conforming students, chanting of slogans, mass rallies, and the emergence of the "Third Wave Movement".

386 A t this p o i n t the e x p e r i m e n t was t e r m i n a t e d and the " p r o b l e m " o f the e m e r g e n c e o f N a z i s m in G e r m a n y was discussed. T h e q u e s t i o n a s k e d the p r e s e n t s u b j e c t s was: " E x p l a i n h o w this e x p e r i m e n t t h r o w s light on the p h e n o m e n o n o f Nazi G e r m a n y " . In the g r o u p t e s t e d , t h e r e w e r e n o r e s p o n s e s b e l o w Level 3 ( m u l t i s t r u c t u r a l ) . T h e e x a m p l e s given b e l o w for Levels 1 and 2 were o b t a i n e d f o r illustrative p u r p o s e s f r o m a few less s o p h i s t i c a t e d subjects:

Level 1 (Pre-structural)
It doesn't to me. I don't see what Mr Jones and Hitler have in common. I don't think it does. It's not as if Mr Jones picked on Jews particularly. T h e first r e s p o n s e is a s i m p l e denial; the s e c o n d is based o n an irrelev a n c y ( " p i c k i n g o n " s o m e o n e , let a l o n e a n y o n e in p a r t i c u l a r , was n o t the point).

Level 2 ( Uni-structural)
It shows how Mr Jones was able to get his students to be extra-obedient in just the same way as Hitler did to the German people. In this r e s p o n s e , the o n e c o n c e p t o f o b e d i e n c e is t a k e n as the link b e t w e e n the t w o s i t u a t i o n s . While this is true, m a n y o t h e r p o i n t s are missed.

Level 3 (Multi-structural)
This experiment shows the way that the citizens of Germany could be manipulated by one leader. It shows the way that it began by firstly starting out in a small way and led to one of the most powerful movements ever experienced in the world. It also indicates the blindness of the citizens of Germany - not knowing what they were heading into. It also demonstrates the powerful effects that slogans and signals had upon the citizens.of Germany. This r e s p o n s e is basically a c a t a l o g u e o f c o n c l u s i o n s " i t s h o w s . . . it also . . . it a l s o " t h a t a r e n ' t really tied t o g e t h e r . A n o t h e r , m o r e l e n g t h y , t y p e o f Level 3 r e s p o n s e was the m e d l e y : the s t u d e n t s i m p l y p l a y e d b a c k a p p r o p r i a t e s e l e c t i o n s f r o m the o r i g i n a l T h e l a t t e r k i n d o f r e s p o n s e s h o w s an ability to u n d e r s t a n d w h a t is relevant or n o t , b u t d o e s n o t d e m o n s t r a t e an ability to i n t e g r a t e or r e f o r m u l a t e the p o i n t s m a d e , or c o n c e i v e t h e m as p a r t o f a larger s t r u c t u r e .

387

Level 4 (Relational)
After the Nazis were defeated, most Germans claimed . . . they knew nothing . . . This experiment showed that in a sense the people really didn't know what was happening. The Nazi leaders . . . told them they were the best people in the world . . . that they must all work together to make Germany the world leader. Mass rallies.., people were encouraged to report their friends. The experiment helps people to see how easily a group of people can be made to believe in and do t h i n g s . . . Jones had the children saluting.., or were r e p o r t e d . . . also for noncompliance . . . The tactics Jones used were the same as the Nazi leaders... This r e s p o n s e takes an integrating c o n c e p t " h o w p e o p l e can claim t h e y d i d n ' t k n o w w h a t was h a p p e n i n g " to explain Nazi G e r m a n y , and listing the m e c h a n i s m s by w h i c h this was achieved, first in G e r m a n y , and s e c o n d by J o n e s in the e x p e r i m e n t . Unlike m a n y Level 3 responses, discussion here is d e v o t e d m o r e to Germany, and the m e c h a n i s m s a p p l y i n g there, whereas Level 3 responses o f t e n c o n c e n t r a t e m o r e on the experiment. When the e x p e r i m e n t is discussed in a Level 4 response it is to relate a p a r t i c u l a r p o i n t to the s i t u a t i o n in G e r m a n y . T h u s the relational response is c o n c e p t u a l l y i n t e g r a t e d w i t h i n its given c o n t e x t ; it does n o t , h o w e v e r , range b e y o n d the given c o n t e x t , e.g. q u e r y i n g the basic premises o f the e x p e r i m e n t .

Level 5 (Extended abstract)

It shows how people can be manipulated, especially in groups, to conform to an association . . . and as the people become more involved in this movement they believe in its ideals more and more. Even at school level this process grew rapidly. The experiment displays the frightening ease at which people can conform, even to such an aggressive movement and shows that it's a phenomenon which could occur with race or culture, and not one which is perhaps peculiar to the Germans at that period. It makes one wonder whether the people involved and subsequently punished for their actions should have been so treated. Would not you or I have done the same thing? Were they just doing their job? This e x t e n d e d a b s t r a c t response implies the detail b u t is n o t p r e o c c u p i e d b y it. The general p o i n t is m a d e : we are n o t talking a b o u t a c l a s s r o o m simulation o f G e r m a n y b u t a b o u t a p r o b a b l y universal c h a r a c t e r i s t i c o f m a n k i n d . If so, several q u e s t i o n s follow, relating to o u r o w n p r o b a b l e b e h a v i o u r and to the justice o f p u n i s h i n g war criminals. N o n e o f these issues is given in the original display and t h e y arise because the r e s p o n d e n t has c o n s t r u e d the passage in t e r m s o f a b s t r a c t principles such as responsibility. Essentially, t h e n , the relational response sticks close to its data and c o n t e x t ; the e x t e n d e d a b s t r a c t response rises a b o v e c o n t e x t u a l i n t e g r a t i n g c o n c e p t s and e m b r a c e s principle.

388 It is interesting to consider what place SOLO levels have in the ecology of higher education. An initial reaction might be that extended abstract responses - as the isomorph of formal operational thought - would be the ideal, if not the norm. A m o m e n t ' s thought will show however that this is not so. Questions that ask "What are the main features o f . . . " , "List . . . " , address multi-structural responding (the isomorph of middle concrete operations). Indeed, if a student speculated from first principles, adduced counter-evidence, or gave qualified answers he may be judged as irrelevant at best, and incorrect at worst. This is not to say that it is a bad thing to require multi-structural responding in certain contexts in higher education, but simply that teacher, and student, need to be aware of what the requirements are. "Compare and contrast" questions optimally require a relational response, although even here a simple listing of points could be enough to get by. Often a teacher might intend to address extended abstract levels in the setting of a question, but in the marking of papers, particularly if there are a large number of papers to be marked in a short period of time, he can too easily adopt a multi-structural marking strategy: a mark each time a relevant point is mentioned, plus a small loading for " q u a l i t y " at the end. This effect is of course exacerbated when several tutors, each supplied with a " m o d e l answer" sheet, are called upon to mark assignments in large undergraduate classes.

Relating Study Processes and Learning Quality

Our concern here is with the relationship between SOLO levels and student's learning processes. How might the three dimensions, utilising, internalising and achieving, relate to SOLO levels? In the utilising process dimension, the target for learning is deliberately restricted to the given context, which would seem to preclude a set conducive to extended abstract responding. Further, the strategy of rote learning details would place data in serial order, with a listing type of output. Hence it would be expected that the more students use a,utilising strategy, the more likely they will produce SOLO Level 3 (multi-structural) rather than Level 4 or 5 responses, but at the same time, the more likely they will be able to remember facts and details. Internalising strategies, on the c~ther hand, would be expected to produce Level 4 or 5 SOLOs. These strategies indicate wide reading, plus the attempt at integration. Thus, if this strategy works, it would produce at least relational and at best extended abstract responding. It is also more likely that wide reading would encourage the student to pursue relevant examples but not ones given in the particular display, and this departure from the given is characteristic of the extended abstract response.

389 The achieving dimension is not so clearly relevant to qualitative outcomes in any direct sense. Perhaps there is a more specific relationship here that is context-dependent, based on how the student sees what is required of him. In other words, if he perceives the best strategy for gaining maximal marks is to produce high levels SOLOs, he will do that; but if he sees it as more appropriate that he produce unrelated lists of facts, he will do that too. These predictions, with the exception of the last, are similar to those made by Marton and Iris co-workers. The major difference lies in the assumption made here th~ t study processes are stable, and will be reliably employed in a given study situation. Scores along these SPQ dimensions might be regarded as tendencies, which are more likely to be actualised as the situation specifically demands. Thus, one might more confidently assume that the person scoring high on utilising will adopt utilising strategies when he is specifically instructed to rote learn facts and details: similarly, the person high on internalising to score high when instructed to learn meaningfully: while the high achiever would be expected to respond with either, as required. The remainder of this paper discusses a preliminary study which investigated these relationships.

Method The SPQ was administered to a class of 60 undergraduate Education students, together with a booklet containing the tasks. The first was a 750word abstract, taken from Psychology Today, (July, 1976, p. 1 4 . ) o f an experiment entitled "The Third Wave: Nazism in a High School"; and the second a 600-word abstract, likewise from Psychblogy Today, (May, 1976, p. 36), entitled "Day Care is as Good as Home Care". Half the group were instructed to read the first abstract by concentrating " o n the purpose of the experiment, and the evidence used to draw the conclusion" and the second abstract by concentrating " o n the facts and details of the experiment." These instructions were reversed for the second half of the group. Thus, each student was instructed to read one abstract meaningfully and the other for detail: while each abstract had been read for both meaning and detail. Following each abstract, an instruction was given to elicit a response for SOLO classification, and students had a page in which to constrtict their response. No expectations of length were given. The instructions were: "Explain how this experiment throws light on the phenomenon of Nazi German y " and " E x a m i n e the case that children in day-care do not differ from home-raised children". Finally, following the SOLO response, a list of highly factual questions were asked about each experiment - the name of the experimenter, number

390 of subjects, exact descriptions of procedures used, etc. - and these were scored stringently (approximations and paraphrases were not acceptable). The time each student t o o k to complete the tasks was noted. The factual questions were presented again a week later in order to obtain some data on immediate versus long term retention of detail. ffor each task, then, the following data were available: condition for learning (meaningful/factual), students' scores on three SPQ dimensions, SOLO level, n u m b e r o f factual details recalled (immediate and delayed). In light of the preceding discussion, SOLO level was taken as index of quality of learning, recall of detail that of quantiO' of learning. Conditions (meaningful/factual) and SPQ dimensions (split at the median) were defined as independent, and the remainder as dependent, variables in a series of analyses o f variance. With the factual items, occasions (immediate/delayed) formed an extra independent variable in a repeated measures design.

Results
LEARNING QUALITY

There were three main effects on SOLO level: higher SOLO levels were associated with the meaning condition (instructions to read for " p u r p o s e " of the Day Care experiment) (p < 0.05) and marginally with high internalising (p < 0.10), while lower SOLOs were associated with high achieving (p < 0.05). For the Third Wave learning task, conditions interacted significantly with utilising (p < 0.05), as illustrated in Fig 1.

450 / / / / L.O U t l l . / / /

/o

9
o

4.00 Meaning

Fact

Fig. 1. Utilising X Conditions on SOLO level (Third Wave)

391 Unlike the Day Care task, where there was a conditions main effect, in the Third Wave task there is a strong disordinal interaction: instructions to attend to factual detail, to those already prone to study details, result in lower. SOLOs, but such instructions to those not predisposed to study detail result in high level SOLOs. Perhaps the first group are unable to see the w o o d for the trees; while the second are alerted to make use of detail in their overall conceptualisation, resulting in more adequately structured responses. LEARNING QUANTITY There were several effects on retention of factual detail. There was a strong decrement from immediate recall to recall o f one week (p < 0.01) as would be expected. Utilising exerted a main effect on recall (p < 0.05) and also on interaction with conditions (p < 0.05) (Day Care task), which is illustrated in Fig 2. Achieving also interacted with occasions (p < 0.05) as in Fig 3.
Learning quahty

10.00

(a) Immediate

ZOO

o--

L~2t,A

_~_
(b) Delayed

4.00

Meaning

Fact

Fig. 2. Utilising X Conditions on Factual Recall (Day Care; a. Immediate, b. Delayed)

The conditions exert an effect only on those high on utilising: factual instructions to those factually oriented in their study produce high recall of factual detail both immediately and delayed. It will be recalled that it was precisely this group (high utilisers under factual conditions) who obtained low SOLOs: it seems that they have bought quantity of learning at the price of quality. Figure 3 shows that high achievers recall more facts and details on immediate testing, but this effect virtually disappears after one week.

392

10.00

b.

Loach
5.00 Immediate

\ \'~x
Delayed

Fig. 3. Achieving X Occasions on Factual Recall (Day Care)

Discussion The general pattern of results obtained was ill accord with expectations in one or other of the tasks, although it was disappointing that the same effects did not replicate across tasks. Perhaps tile observed effects interacted with the passages: there was a greater range of SOLOs in response to Third Wave than to Day Care, due to the different structures of the passages themselves. However, we might review the results in so far as they apply to at least one of the tasks: the following generalisations can be made. 1. Instructions to concentrate upon either facts and details, or upon purpose of experiment and evidence for conclusions, affect the quality of learning. In one task, a meaning orientation produced high SOLOs unequivocally, but in another task, the effect was different for different students. Students already prone to rote learning of facts (scores on the utilising dimension) will do so efficiently and retain them longer when instructed to do so. This is, however, at the expense of quality of learning, since while their factual recall- is higher, their SOLO levels of response are lower, than those of students scoring low in the utilising dimension. Indeed, the latter score particularly high SOLOs wl~en instructed to concentrate on facts: they possibly use the facts c o m p o n e n t s in a structure rather than as isolated elements. 2. An achieving orientation to study produces low response complexity as assessed by SOLO level, but high immediate recall of facts. The superiority of factual recall does not however re,pain after a week. 3. An internalising orientation may lead to higher level SOLOs, independently of conditions of learning, but this was a relatively weak effect. The general direction of these results is mostly in line with that predicted. The utilising orientation to study works for the retention o f fact and detail and against complexity o f response. The internalising orientation relates to high complexity, although this finding was not strong. The achieving orientation on the other hand did not lead to good learning complexity,

393 u n d e r conditions encouraging c o m p l e x i t y , but was associated with low complexity and high factual recall under all conditions. These data are encouraging, and c o r r o b o r a t e , by a quite different m e t h o d o l o g y , the work o f Marton and his colleagues. Nevertheless, more widespread and ecologically valid work i s necessary to substantiate the general model. Perhaps the effects would have 1Seen stronger had the learning been c o n d u c t e d under more " n a t u r a l " conditions (the students knew they were taking part in an e xpe r i m e nt ) . F o r example, it is likely that students' e x p e c t a t i o n s o f what is required for exam i nat i on purposes would interact with study processes more effectively than simple instructions to learn the facts and details or to assess evidence for conclusions in rather arbitrary ex p er ime nt al abstracts. If a student believes he will be given credit for good factual recall, he is likely to adjust his studying accordingly; likewise, adjustment is likely if he believes his final grade depends on SOLO level rather than n u m b e r of correct points made. In addition, however, these affects are modified by his existing predilections for study and motives for being at university, and in the interests o f fairness the tertiary e d u c a t o r needs to take these issues into account.

References
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