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British Journal of Educational

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Strategies of learning and

studying: Regent research
findings
Noel Entwistle

Department of Educational Research , University

of Lancaster
Published online: 21 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Noel Entwistle (1977) Strategies of learning and studying:
Regent research findings, British Journal of Educational Studies, 25:3, 225-238, DOI:
10.1080/00071005.1977.9973497
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00071005.1977.9973497

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BRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES

Vol. XXV, No 3 OCTOBER 1977

STRATEGIES OF LEARNING AND

STUDYING: REGENT RESEARCH
FINDINGS

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by NOEL ENTWISTLE, Department of Educational Research, University

of Lancaster
Introduction

hat insights can educational and psychological research provide, which would have practical value for lecturers and
students in higher education?
There seems to be a good deal of justified scepticism about the value of
learning theories and educational research when applied to the complexities of student learning. Yet it seems logical that a systematic study of
learning should help both teachers and students to become more effective.
Certainly, at the turn of the century, James Ward found it self-evident
that psychology had important implications for education at whatever
level. He argued that:
a science of education is theoretically possible, and . . . such a science
must be based on psychology and the cognate sciences. To show this we
have, indeed, only to consider that the educator works, or rather ought
to work, upon a growing mind, with a definite purpose of attaining an
end in view. For unless we maintain that the growth of mind follows
no law; or, to put it otherwise, unless it be maintained that systematic
observation of the growth of (say) a hundred minds would disclose no
uniformities; and unless, further, it can be maintained that for the
attainment of a definite end there are no definite means, we must allow
that if the teacher knows what he wants to do there must be a scientific
way of doing it.1

Why then is there such scepticism nowadays? Perhaps there are two
main reasons: one concerns the direction taken by academic psychology
and the other is to do with the expectations of teachers and students.
Academic psychology has made strenuous attempts to become 'scientific',
and has followed the hypothetico-deductive paradigm of research which
proved so fruitful in the physical sciences. But to adopt this scientific
approach in psychology, the problems had to be narrowed down. Psychology began as the 'study of mind'; it soon became stereotyped as the
domain of rat-runners and pigeon-fanciers. Extrapolation from the
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behaviour of rats in mazes or pigeons in boxes to the work of students in

universities requires a leap of faith across an enormous credibility gap.
Few psychologists have been able to cross it to the satisfaction of teachers.
The next difficulty is the expectations of teachers and students. Those
who have considered psychology to have some value have expected research findings to provide clear-cut answers to their problems. Given the
complexity of real-life learning situations, this is asking too much. What
can psychology and educational research realistically offer? Although
Ward clearly expected rather clear laws of learning to emerge, he still
recognized that they would not provide a panacea for teachers. He said:
The teacher who has a fair knowledge of psychology can see the 'why'
and 'wherefore' of any (educational) theory that is offered him, can
even to a large extent make his own theory, or, at any rate, intelligently
apply and, by and by, supplement out of his own experience the theory
with which he starts.2
There is a growing recognition that psychological and educational
research can improve practice, but not in the direct way that advances in
physics contribute to engineering. It is an indirect effect. Research evidence gradually changes teachers' assumptions, and the way they interpret
their role. It 'sensitizes' teachers to aspects of the teaching-learning process
which had previously lacked significance. It points up anomalies in the
existing situation and may provide hints at alternative solutions. But it
cannot indicate the single best way of tackling either lecturing or studying.
William James saw the difficulty as one of application.
Psychology can state the laws: concrete tact and talent alone can work
them to useful results.3
And more recently a leading American psychologist, Lee Cronbach, has
acknowledged the limited extent to which psychological research can
provide 'facts' which will be of direct, and immediate, value in making
practical decisions.
Though enduring systematic theories about man in society are not
likely to be achieved, systematic inquiry can realistically hope to make
two contributions. One reasonable aspiration is to assess local events
accurately, to improve short-run control -. . . The other reasonable
aspiration is to develop explanatory concepts, concepts that will help
people use their heads.4
Recent research in higher education seems to be fulfilling both these
aspirations. It is, for example, providing information on the accuracy of
selection methods, and is also beginning to provide concepts which should
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help lecturers and students to think more clearly about the tasks that face
them in higher education.
Prediction of Academic Performance
A follow-up study sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust
began in Lancaster in 1968. One part of this project was to identify the
characteristics of students who were successful in different areas of study,
and a full report on the findings has recently been prepared.5 1531
students from seven English universities were given a battery of psychological tests in their first year, and again in their final year. From a correlational analysis it was possible to describe the characteristics which were
consistently associated with good degree results across all six areas. The
results provided few surprises. The successful student tends to have
obtained good grades at school, to have high levels of numerical and
verbal aptitude, to be well motivated, to have well-organized study
methods, to work hard, and to be introverted. But that overall picture is
misleading and unhelpful. The spurious uniformity is produced by the
statistical analysis used. A different approachcluster analysisproduced
a more realistic picture. Successful students rarely have all the characteristics of the ideal statistical assemblage. Students achieve success in
different ways, with different combinations of aptitudes, attitudes and
personality traits. For example, two groups of students who had above
average degree results were described as follows:
One cluster 'contained students with high "A" level grades who were
satisfied with their courses. These students had not had a particularly
active social or sporting life, nor had they concentrated on developing
aesthetic interests . . . They were highly motivated and had (wellorganised) study methods. In personality they were emotionally stable
and had high scores on theoretical and economic values, linked with a
tendency towards tough-minded conservatism. This combination of
characteristics suggests a rather cold and ruthless individual governed
by rationality and spurred on by competition to repeated demonstrations of intellectual mastery...
'The main defining features (of the contrasting cluster) were high
scores on neuroticism and syllabus-boundness. Their self-ratings were
uniformly negative. They saw themselves as neither likeable nor selfconfident. They had no active social life and had few aesthetic interests
. . . It is tempting to see these students as being motivated by fear of
failure.'6
The two groups did seem to be using different forms of motivation
hope for success and fear of failure, but it was interesting to see how the
negative reaction proved almost as effective as the positive one in leading
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to high academic achievement. In interviews with students7 the differences

between these two groups of students became even clearer. Not only did
they have contrasting personality characteristics, they seemed to perceive
their experience of higher education very differently.
The self-confident students were much more aware of themselves as
interacting with academic requirements. They were aware of the 'rules of
the game'. In Miller and Parlett's8 terms they were 'cue seekers', trying to
discover how lecturers marked essays and what they were likely to include
in the examination. If conditions for studying are not suitable, these
students will do something about it. They use their own initiative to react
against unfavourable circumstances.
In contrast the anxious students adopt a passive role. They seem
daunted by the authority of lecturers. One student commented:
University confronts the student with a rigid intellectual authority: a
body of teachers with a far greater degree of knowledge and expertise
challenges and intimidates.
Fear of failure shows itself often as syllabus-boundness. These students
work hard at set reading and assignments, but rarely go beyond these.
They seem so preoccupied with thoughts of ultimate academic disaster
that they dare not try out their own ideas: they are afraid of being wrong.
Approaches to Learning
These two groups of students appear to be adopting contrasting approaches
to studying. A series of research studies in Gothenburg has been drawing
attention to a rather different aspect of such approaches. Ference Marton
and his colleagues* have asked first-year students individually to read an
article at their own speed and in their normal way. Afterwards the
students are interviewed to discover what they remember, how they
tackled the article, and how they normally approach studying. By going
over the transcripts of the interviews repeatedly, Marton recognized two
distinctive approaches to reading. He contrasted 'deep-level processing'
with 'surface-level processing'.
In the case of surface-level processing the student directs his attention
towards learning the text itself {the sign), i.e. he has a 'reproductive'
conception of learning which means that he is more or less forced to
keep to a rote-learning strategy. In the case of deep-level processing, on
the other hand, the student is directed towards the intentional content
* Besides the articles given as references, edited extracts from most of the authors
mentioned in this paper have been published in a set of readings, available from the
Institute for Research and Development in Post-Compulsory Education, University
of Lancaster, entitled How Students Learn?
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of the learning material (what is signified), i.e. he is directed towards

comprehending what the author wants to say.10

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The essential difference is best summed up by two comments from

students.
I sort of memorised (more or less) everything I'd read.
I tried to think about what it was all a b o u t : . . . how he had built up
the whole thing.
When students were asked about their normal patterns of studying, it
became clear that the approach to reading the article was indicative of a
general approach to studying. 23 out of 30 students were classified in the
same way in the experiment and from their description of their study
methods. 10 students appeared to adopt deep approaches in both situations, and only one of them had any element of failure in examinations.
13 students were categorized as adopting surface processing in both
experiment and studying, and of these only three students avoided failing
in at least one examination. The link between 'cognitive approach' and
academic performance is clearly established. Svensson11 goes on to show
that a full explanation of a student's examination results can be built up
from the interviews. The 'surface processors' who did pass examinations
had worked hard, used 'elaborated' study techniques, and revised
thoroughly. Svensson also points out that a surface approach can become
self-validating. Rote learning is tedious and ineffective in higher education. Thus many students who adopt a surface approach become disillusioned by their experiences and reduce their efforts. All those students
who learned by rote and worked less than three hours a day failed. There
is a vicious circle here which can be illustrated by the comment of one
student interviewed in the Lancaster study.
Depending on who lectured, you didn't seem to gain an awful lot
from lectures. Some were pretty useless. So you acclimatise and just
don't bother going to all the lectures . . . Then, as you start doing that,
you start getting alienated, I suppose, from the system, and it doesn't
work for you . . . It was dissatisfying because without being able to put
anything in, I wasn't getting much out of the work . . . It was just a
vicious circle. I never broke out of it.*
Two other studies at Gothenburg threw further light on the distinction
between deep and surface approaches. Saljo12 investigated the effects of
questions on the approach adopted. After one chapter of a textbook,
students were asked questions about it. One group of students was given
'deep' questions; the other group was given factual questions. After a
* These student interviews were carried out by Jennifer Thompson and will be
reported in full in a Lancaster Ph.D. thesis.
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repetition of this differential treatment, both groups were given both deep
and surface questions about a third chapter. The results indicated that it
was possible to alter students' approaches to some extentbut it was
much easier to induce surface processing than to encourage a search for
meaning. Over half the Swedish first-year students were classified as
surface-processors, and a similar proportion has been reported in
England.13 It may well be that secondary school examinations are
encouraging a rote-learning, reproductive approach to studying.
The final study at Gothenburg has been reported by Fransson.14 He
varied the levels of motivation and anxiety of students before they were
asked to do the learning experiment. It seems that motivation increases
the probability of a student adopting deep-level processing, while anxiety
induces a hurried 'fact-grabbing' strategy. Here there seems to be a clear
link with the Lancaster research. Fear of failure students were syllabusbound. It now seems that they will also be likely to adopt surfaceprocessing and to reach acceptable levels of performance mainly by long
hours of anxious application.
This research at Gothenburg is still continuing, and an SSRC research
programme at Lancaster is following similar lines. Two important questions being asked concern the intellectual development which may take
place in higher education and whether students use different strategies in
reaching a deep level of understanding.
Intellectual Development during the College Years
The best-known research on intellectual development is that of Piaget and
Inhelder,15 but their famous series of stages and periods are completed
with the establishment of formal operations during adolescence. What
happens after that age ? There is surprisingly little psychological evidence
about the intellectual effects of higher education. Clearly students acquire
more knowledge and technical skills, but is there no change in their way
of thinking? One study carried out by Perry16 at Harvard suggests that
there are important changes during the college years.
Again this research study used an interview methodology. Perry talked
to the same group of students every year about their experiences at college.
Using a very open approach, he was particularly interested in the way
students came to appreciate the 'relativism which permeates a pluralistic
society'. This relativism is met in most undergraduate courses, but is most
striking in the social sciences and humanities. Perry found that he could
identify a series of nine positions through which most students progressed,
as they moved from absolutist views about the world towards what he calls
'contextual relativistic reasoning'. This development can most easily be
illustrated from the comments of two students, identified as being at the
first and fifth positions in Perry's scheme.
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When I went to my first lecture, what the man said was just like God's
word, you know, I believed it because he was a professor . . . and this
was a respected position.
The more I work here, the more I feel that what I'm trying to do is
to become what you might call a detached observer of . . . any situation
. . . One who can . . . detach himself emotionally . . . and look at the
various sides of a problem in an objective, empirical type of way.17
Few students at Harvard reached college at Position i. Most of them
were aware of uncertainty, but to begin with students still expected the
'right answer' to be found eventually. Some students attributed the conflicting interpretations they met to badly qualified teachers who were
unable to decide which answer was right. Later on, students recognized
that lecturers expect analytical discussion in essays and the weighing of
evidence in argument, but they saw the emphasis on relativism as part of
an academic ritual. They did not see its relevance to everyday life.
The eventual awareness that relativism is an accurate reflection, not
just of our current state of knowledge, but an inevitable consequence of
human fallibility and subjectivity, can come as a traumatic shock to some
students. It creates uncertainty; it challenges fundamental beliefs. But
out of this conflict grows the ability to use relativistic reasoning in
academic work and in social situations. Students become better able to
tolerate opposite viewpoints, while still defending their own ideas. They
recognize the need to commit themselves to a personal interpretation, but
accept the right of others to reach a different position.
This stage of commitment comes as the final position in Perry's scheme
and is rarely reached during the college years. One student who was
considered to have reached this stage of maturity, reviewed his own intellectual development in these words:
I used to think that you could evaluate decisions in terms of a right
and a wrong . . . And I think that lately I've been somehow rejecting
this . . ., that you can make right and wrong decisions. You simply
make decisions, and whichever way you go there's not going to be any
violent repercussion.
This student went on to describe the toleration he had acquired for other
people's committed views.
Once you find out where you stand, . . . then you just have to say, if
you're confronted with a person who doesn't do things like you do,
'Well, he has decided to do things like thisI wouldn't. I don't think
it's right.' And yet you have to come back and say 'But this is only
subjective'this is only my way of looking at things. I can't say, in
absolute terms, that this is immoral.1S
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In the later stages of Perry's scheme, intellectual and moral development merge. The relativistic reasoning which was first applied, reluctantly,
to academic assignments is later used enthusiastically in thinking about
social issues and personal relationships. The final position is seen by
several psychologists as the ultimate goal of personality development.
Maslow19 describes this as the process of 'self-actualisation', Erikson20 uses
the term 'ego-integrity' to describe

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an experience which conveys some world order and spiritual sense, no

matter how dearly paid for,
while Jung21 sees 'individuation' as the ability to reconcile society's
pressures towards conformity with the need for individuality and selfexpression.
It must not be surprising that few students reach this acme of maturity:
it is more disconcerting perhaps to realize that some students do. In Perry's
study Position 9 seems to have been given by judges who reallv wanted to
say ' You're a better man than I am.'
Perry's study seems to provide a good way of describing what many
lecturers have described less precisely as 'critical thinking'. Ashby, for
example, sees 'post-conventional thinking' as one of the main aims of
higher education:
The student (moves) from the uncritical acceptance of orthodoxy to
creative dissent over the values and standards of society . . . (In higher
education) there must be opportunities for the intellect to be stretched
to its capacity, the critical faculty sharpened to the point where it can
change ideas.22
The studies by both Marton and Perry provide a new terminology for
describing how students learn, but inevitably they over-simplify the
situation. There are times when students should be expected to reach a
firm conclusion from evidence without requiring commitment as well,
and times when surface processing to pick out facts may be the right
strategy. It is the ability to read and reason appropriately which is the
essential skilland different students may reach a deep level of understanding in different ways.
Different Styles of Learning
Work by Gordon Pask in London shows some of the ways in which
students' learning strategies vary. In his early experiments he asked
students to work out the principles by which imaginary species of Martian
animals had been classified. Information on ten sub-species of animals
was provided on cards, laid out face-down on a table to form a matrix of
sub-species by categories of information (for example, habitat, physical
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characteristics, drawings of the animals). Students were asked to turn up

cards in whatever order they liked, but to explain their reasons for choosing each card. As they tried to work out the classification system for, say,
a Gandlemuller, Pask was able to distinguish two distinct strategiesholist
and serialist. Holists adopt a broad perspective looking for a variety of
inter-relationships, while serialists adopt a narrow focus of attention and
step-by-step learning. There were also differences in the type of questions
students asked in trying to establish the classification system that had been
used...
Holist students ask questions about broad relations and form hypotheses
about generalisations. Serialists asks questions about much narrower
relations and their hypotheses are specific.28
Some holists invent their own descriptive terms. For example, one student
stated that
The ones that were discovered first are gentle; the other kinds, the
aggressive beasts were found later, well they are the ones with less
mounds.
Pask comments
In fact, neither the order of discovery nor gentleness appear as data
. . . Both predicates are invented, but later they acquire meaning and
serve as adequate personal discriminators which assist in describing
real differences.24
The styles of learning also carry with them characteristic pathologies.
Holists are liable to over-generalize, to look for remote analogies between
ideas which sometimes turn out to be quite wrong. Pask describes this
pathology as 'globe-trotting'. Serialists fall prey to their own caution.
They fail to make use of valid analogies, which makes it difficult for them
to integrate their knowledge effectively. This pathology is referred to as
'improvidence'.
Pask has since used other ways of showing the differing strategies that
students learn. There now seems good reason to believe that three categories of student can consistently be identifiedthe holist, the serialist,
and the versatile learner who adopts whichever strategy seems to suit the
particular task best. But has this research any educational relevance ? The
implications depend on another study reported by Pask in which he
prepared materials specially designed for holists and serialists. He then
matched and mis-matched students and learning materials. Under these
extreme experimental conditions, large differences in learning were
demonstrated. Holists given serialist materials learned very little, as did
serialists with holist material. Students whose learning style matched the
materials learned quickly and accurately.
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If lecturers or tutors adopt a distinctive style in presenting information

and ideas to students, presumably that approach will suit some students,
but make learning difficult for others. But do lecturers vary as much in
their teaching as students do in their learning strategies ?
Personality and Cognitive Style
Perhaps the first question to ask is what underlies the learning styles that
Pask has identified ? What makes a student prefer broad, confident, overgeneralization or narrow, inhibited concentration on each step of learning
at a time? Does this reflect differences in personality or different levels of
ability? There is some evidence25 that students who prefer a 'breadthfirst' approach to learning score higher on a reasoning test than do
serialists. Perhaps, however, it is the 'versatile' students who have the
greatest intellectual advantage. Pask26 has found that holists also have
higher scores on a divergent thinking test. It is certainly tempting to
equate 'holists' with Hudson's27 'divergers' who preferred arts to science
and were emotionally uninhibited. Other research has suggested that
students who excel at divergent thinking also tend to use broad, inclusive
categories in examining information.28
These individual differences in ways of using information are often
described in terms of 'cognitive style', and Witkin29 has described what
seems to be one of the most fundamental differences which affects both
perceptual and cognitive processes. Witkin has made wide use of an
'embedded figures' test in which a simple geometrical shape has to be
found in a complex design. People who are able to distinguish 'figure
from ground' spot the simple shapes rapidly, and Witkin describes them
as 'field-independent'. The inability to identify the simple figures represents 'field-dependence', and scores range from one extreme to the other.
When it comes to thinking, Witkin finds that field-independent students
impose a great deal of structure on incoming information. Field-dependent
students accept the information as it comes, adopting a 'global' rather
than an 'articulated' approach. In terms of personality, field-dependent
students are likely to be extraverted, and they generally show a distinct
antipathy to science and mathematics. Field-independent students are
less sociable, and are less at home in the humanities and social sciences
than in science and mathematics.
Witkin30 has also reported that differences in cognitive style are associated with different approaches to teaching. Extraverted, field-dependent
teachers are more likely to adopt small-group discussion methods, while
the field-independent teachers prefer more formal, distant relationships
with students and present highly structured courses. So far Witkin has not
found whether students learn best from teachers of the same cognitive
style, but he has shown that they prefer matched to mis-matched situations.
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In research on school children31'32 it has already been demonstrated that

anxious children learn more effectively from structured materials, while
stable, extraverted pupils make more progress with 'discovery' methods.
Also when children are asked to work in pairs, putting extraverts or introverts together, but mixing anxious and stable children, seems to provide
the best combination.
Implications for Higher Education
It is now possible to give some tentative answers to questions posed earlier.
There is evidence that teachers adopt a teaching style which reflects their
own way of thinking. Teachers generally have the opportunity to select
their own approach, but what they may not realize is that a decision to
adopt an extreme approachwhether that is towards the structured,
formal end of the continuum or towards the unstructured, informal end
may adversely affect some students' ability to learn. As no single approach
can be best for all students, we should perhaps settle for a mixed economy
which presents a clear structure, but allows freedom for some individual
work. The accepted mixture of formal lectures, informal discussion groups
and individual study may not, after all, be far wrong. What may, however, be necessary is to think more clearly about the functions of largegroup and small-group methods in relation to the particular intellectual
skills, or cognitive style, they are expected to foster and whether the
assignments and examination questions given to students provide sufficient
encouragement for deep-level processing.
Witkin draws attention to the problems of field-dependent students
who find themselves increasingly uncomfortable in a college science
course. In the Lancaster study we were also able to identify a cluster of
scientists who had values more akin to arts specialists, and whose academic
performance deteriorated markedly during the three years. But the
solution may not necessarily be to advise these students to change courses.
Witkin comments:
It has been observed repeatedly, as we have seen, that relatively fielddependent students are not likely to do as well in mathematics and the
sciences as more field-independent students. However, to this statement
must be added the qualification: 'with the present ways of teaching
these disciplines'."
Witkin's comment draws attention to the fact that it is not simply the
balance between large-group and small-group teaching that is important.
It is the way that teaching method is interpreted. While it may be difficult
to adopt an informal approach in a large lecture hall, it is all too easy to
create a tense, formal atmosphere with a small group of students and to
emphasize correct facts to the exclusion of exploratory ideas. It may be
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fruitful to use student-led tutorial groups: the inhibiting effect of tutordominance can easily destroy the potential value of discussions among
students.
Perhaps the most important reminder which comes from Perry's work
is that intellectual development can be traumatic. Lecturers are perhaps
too ready to attribute lack of progress to indolence or apathy.84 Such
explanations will be true for some students, but we still have to ask how
that apathy arisesto what extent are their experiences creating those
feelings ? As one lecturer commented during an interview
The main trouble is unwillingness to get down to work, but having
said this, there is no doubt at the back of every instance of such unwillingness a paradox . . . that at some time in the past, in order for a
person to have got here, presumably he had been willing, and something is going on which diminishes that willingness.
Perry's research indicates that students experience crises induced not just
by personal relationships, but by the fundamental shifts in thinking which
are being demanded of them. Students need support, rather than criticism,
where lack of progress has its roots in the crises of self-confidence, or
philosophical doubts, which assail even the most industrious, and particularly the more imaginative, students.
Some of the implications of Marton's research appear to be straightforward. If half our first-year students are still adopting a reproductive,
surface-processing approach, it is essential to help them to see higher
education in a different way. But there are problems. The study by Saljo
showed that it is easier to induce a surface approach than a deep one.
Perry's findings suggest that the awareness of relativistic reasoning, which
may be essential for deep-level reasoning, develops only gradually. It is
not clear to what extent this type of thinking can be taught at all. It may
even be another facet of general intellectual ability. Surface processing
may be the only strategy possible for students who are out of their intellectual depth. But for others it seems to be more a lack of awareness or of
maturity. It seems likely that some students could be helped to adopt
more effective approaches to reading and studying.
There is, however, one final problem. To what extent does surfaceprocessing reflect a style of learning which students deliberately adopt
because it suits their own personality? Pask's research distinguishes between the narrowly focused attention of the serialist learner and the broad
use of analogical relations preferred by the holist. In Marton's experiments
some of the surface approaches may have reflected an initial orientation
towards facts, which through apparent time pressures did not reach a
deeper review of the whole article. There may also be subject area differences: scientists may generally expect to adopt a narrower focus than
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students in the humanities. Attention to detail is, of course, essential in all

academic disciplines, but they may differ in the extent to which undergraduates are able, or feel free, to explore broad, sweeping interconnections
between ideas. In the sciences detailed information may have to be
mastered first: an initially narrow focus, and even the rote learning of
information, may be a good way to start a course. There may also, as we
have seen, be important personality differences which facilitate or inhibit
a holist approach to learning. Subject areas may well both attract people
with appropriate styles of thinking and develop those characteristic styles
further. That was certainly C. P. Snow's view of the 'two cultures', which
seems to be borne out by the personality differences between areas of study
shown in the Lancaster study.35
Perhaps it is better to equate a deep-level approach, not with holist
strategies, but with the ability to be a versatile learner. This demands a
great deal of the student. He must be able to recognize differences in the
academic tasks given to him and then adopt an appropriate learning
strategy. Self-confidence, maturity and a wide range of intellectual skills
are necessary. But presumably, as Ward said, if there is a definite end in
view 'there must be a scientific way of doing it'. It is an important task of
both educational research and academic colleagues to discover ways of
helping as many students as possible become bold but accurate, versatile,
deep-level, relativistic thinkers.

REFERENCES
1. J. Ward, Psychology Applied to Education, Cambridge, Cambridge University
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2. Ibid., 9.
3. W. James, Talks to Teachers (re-issue), New York, Norton, 1958.
4. L. J. Cronbach, 'Beyond the Two Disciplines of Psychology', Am.Psychol., 30,
1975, 126.
5. N. J. Entwistle and J. D. Wilson, Degrees of Excellence: the Academic Achievement Game, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1977.
6. Ibid., 129-30.
7. N. J. Entwistle, J. B. Thompson and J. D. Wilson, 'Motivation and Study
Habits', Higher Education, 3, 1974, 379-95.
8. C. Miller and M. R. Parlett, Up to the Mark: a Study of the Examination
Game, London, Society for Research into Higher Education, 1974.
9. N. J. Entwistle and D. J. Hounsell (eds.), How Students Learn: Readings in
Higher Education (1), Institute for Research and Development in PostCompulsory Education, University of Lancaster, 1975.
10. F. Marton and R. Saljo, 'On Qualitative Differences in Learning IOutcome
and Process', Br.J.Educ.Psychol., 46, 1, 1976, 7-8.
11. L. Svensson, 'On Qualitative Differences in Learning IIIStudy Skill and
Learning', Br.J.Educ.Psychol., 47, 3, November 1977.

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STRATEGIES OF LEARNING AND STUDYING: RECENT RESEARCH FINDINGS

12. F. Marton and R. Saljo, 'On Qualitative Differences in Learning IIOutcome

as a Function of the Learner's Conception of the Task', Br.J.Educ.Psychol., 46,
2, 1976, 115-27.
13. N. J. Entwistle and M. Robinson, 'Personality, Cognitive Style and Students'
Learning Strategies', 1976, in A. Bonoir (ed.), Proceedings of the Second
Annual Congress of the European Association for Research and Development in
Higher Education (provisional title), University of Louvain-la-Neuve, 1977.
14. A. Fransson, 'On Qualitative Differences in Learning IVEffects of Motivation
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15. J. Piaget and B. Inhelder, The Psychology of the Child, London, Routledge and
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16. W. G. Perry, Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College
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17. Ibid., 61, 126.
18. Ibid., 172-3.
19. A. H. Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Harmondsworth,
Penguin, 1973.
20. E. H. Erikson, Childhood and Society, New York, Norton, 1963, 268.
21. C. G. Jung, Man and His Symbols, London, Aldus, 1964.
22. E. Ashby, 'The Structure of Higher Education: a World-View', Higher
Education, 2, 1973, 147-9.
23. G. Pask, 'Styles and Strategies of Learning', Br.J.Educ.Psychol., 46, 2, 1976, 130.
24. Ibid., 130-2.
25. I. T. Robertson, An Investigation of Some Relationships between Learning and
Personality (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Open University, Milton Keynes, 1977).
26. Pask, op. cit.
27. L. Hudson, Contrary Imaginations, London, Methuen, 1966.
28. M. A. Wallach and N. Kogan, Modes of Thinking in Young Children, New
York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965.
29. H. A. Witkin, C. A. Moore, D. R. Goodenough and P. W. Cox, 'FieldDependent and Field-Independent Cognitive Styles and their Educational
Implications', Rev.Educ.Res., 47, 1977, 1-64.
30. Ibid.
31. G. O. M. Leith, 'Individual Differences in Learning: Interactions of Personality
and Teaching Methods', in Personality and Academic Progress, Association of
Educational Psychologists (London, 1974).
32. E. A. Trown and G. O. M. Leith, 'Decision Rules for Teaching Strategies in
Primary Schools: Personality-Treatment Interactions', Br.J.Educ.Psychol., 45,
1975, 130-40.
33. Witkin, op. cit., 53.
34. N. J. Entwistle, 'How Students Learn: Information Processing, Intellectual
Development and Confrontation, Higher Education Bulletin, 3, 1975, 129-48.
35. Entwistle and Wilson, op. cit.

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