Examines research conducted at the British Open University using the research paradigm of phenomenography to discover what students understand about particular concepts in social science. The use of student interviews for formative and summative evaluation is described, and changes in course materials based on the results are discussed.…

Both evaluation and planning typically begin with an attempt to define the conceptual territory of interest; this paper presents an approach to such conceptualization. The term, structured conceptualization, is used to refer to any definable set of procedures which can help a user develop a useful conceptual representation. Structured…