Arguments are put forward in this paper in favour of research which has as its aim the finding and systematizing of forms of thought in terms of which people interpret significant aspects of reality. The kind of research argued for is complementary to other kinds of research; it aims at description, analysis and understanding of experiences. The relatively distinct field of inquiry indicated by such an orientation is labelled phenomenography.A fundamental distinction is made between two perspectives. From the first-order perspective we aim at describing various aspects of the world and from the second-order perspective (for which a case is made in this paper) we aim at describing people's experience of various aspects of the world.Research in a variety of disciplines, sub-disciplines and "schools of thought" has provided us with experiential descriptions, that is, content-oriented and interpretative descriptions of the qualitatively different ways in which people perceive and understand their reality. It has, however, seldom been recognized that these various research efforts share a common perspective in their view of phenomena and a unifying scientific identity has in consequence not been attained. The focussing on the apprehended (experienced, conceptualized,) content as a point of departure for carrying out research and as a basis for integrating the findings is seen as the most distinctive feature of the domain indicated.Conceptions and ways of understanding are not seen as individual qualities. Conceptions of reality are considered rather as categories of description to be used in facilitating the grasp of concrete cases of human functioning. Since the same categories of description appear in different situations, the set of categories is thus stable and generahzable between the situations even if individuals move from one category to another on different occasions. The totality of such categories of description denotes a kind of collective intellect, an evolutionary tool in continual development.

Summary. This paper describes an attempt to identify different levels of processing of information among groups of Swedish university students who were asked to read substantial passages of prose. Students were asked questions about the meaning of the passages and also about how they set about reading the passages. This approach allows processes and strategies of learning to be examined, as well as the outcomes in terms of what is understood and remembered. The starting point of this research was that learning has to be described in terms of its content. From this point differences in what is learned, rather than differences in how much is learned, are described. It was found that in each study a number of categories (levels of outcome) containing basically different conceptions of the content of the learning task could be identified. The corresponding differences in level of processing are described in terms of whether the learner is engaged in surface‐level or deep‐level processing.

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Summary. Two groups of 20 first‐year students were asked to read three sections of a textbook. After the first two sections the groups received different types of question. One group received questions which demanded a thorough understanding of the meaning of the passage. The other group was given detailed factual questions. After the final section of reading a common set of questions of both types was asked. Besides providing further evidence of qualitative differences in learning, the experiment showed that students did adapt their way of learning to their conception of what was required of them.