Two perspectives of descriptive research are discussed: first-order, which describes the world as it is; and second-order, which describes the world as people experience it. The latter perspective is known as experiential description. Research in a variety of disciplines, notably the work of Darwin, Werner, and Piaget, has provided experiential…

This report describes a study that investigated the relationship between the learning process and teaching at the university level. Specifically, the study sought to answer three questions: (1) What is a fruitful way of observing and describing knowledge? (2) How can study skill be observed and described? and (3) How can study skill be influenced?…

It is frequently claimed that learning "how to learn" is more important than what is learned. On the other hand, many are more concerned with the mastery of content. The tendency to regard knowledge and skills as two different things is examined and it is argued that they are related phenomena, not separate entities. (Author/JMD)

A progress report on a research project directed toward facilitating deeper understanding of economic concepts at the university level is presented. The purposes of the project are to explore phenomena conceptualization and to investigate why some students are more successful at a learning task than other students. In the analysis of a…

Differences in levels of subject matter learning at the university level were explored to determine how a learning task is approached between those who are successful and those who are less successful. Students read a selected social science text, (Paul Samuelson's "Economics", for example), related the material learned, answered content…