ABSTRACT
The Gothenburg studies have followed a common pattern in that all students are asked to read and answer questions about a set text. Some experimental manipulation has, however, been attempted with the aim of inducing students to adopt a particular approach to the reading task. The Gothenburg studies demonstrate very clear differences in qualitative understanding of ideas and principles. As F. Marton and R. Saljo have noted: ‘a highly significant aspect of learning is the variation in what is learned, i.e. the diversity of ways in which the same phenomenon, concept or principle is apprehended by different students’. The distinction between depth and surface processors and atomists and holists is based on the analysis of students’ introspective accounts of how they read the passages set in the experiments. Students had to describe what they thought about as they were reading, which aspects they concentrated on, and how far they tried to memorise specific facts and details.
