This paper reports part of an investigation into how tertiary-level distance students use and learn from textual materials during actual study sessions. Methods used provided biographical data on students and students' perceptions of their study approaches and access to the moment-bymoment thinking of students during study. Close-ups of students at work provided by analysis of these data were not flattering. They revealed that students were satisficers, processed text at a rate consistent with a surface approach, avoided in-text questions and activities wherever possible and made limited use of aspects of the text's access structure. Reasons for the poorer-than-expected study performances are considered as well as ways of improving text design to enhance the quality of learning.

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It has been suggested that improvements in the quality of distance-teaching materials could be effected if the mental responses that mediate study of and learning from such materials were known. This project aimed at identifying the types and origins of students' convert mediating responses to distance-teaching materials during study sessions. Three one-half hour study sessions were videotaped for each of four student volunteers in a room set up on the campus. Immediately following each study session stimulated-recall interviews were conducted, the data from these being audiotaped and then transcribed for further analysis. Interview protocols revealed that approaches to study were influenced by a set of interdependent factors, which, when combined with a set of study strategies, resulted in two broad classes of study orientation. Twenty different types of mental processes were identified, seven of which were used more frequently than the others. Furthermore, textual features which activated mental processes were identified using the stimulated-recall technique, and promising suggestions for textual design were gleaned from the data. Areas for further research were also identified. INTRODUCTIONOne of the many challenges confronting those involved in the design of distance-teaching materials is how to maximise the effectiveness of such materials in promoting student learning. Distance teaching has attracted only a very modest amount of interest from educational researchers and theorists. As a consequence we have very little systematic knowledge available on how students actually use distance-teaching materials (Roe, 1981) or how they learn from them. Morgan, Gibbs, and Taylor of the 215 Downloaded by [UQ Library] at 16:24 06 June 2016 Distance Education Vol. 5, No. 2, 1984 Study Methods Group at the Open University have recently commented that 'even after almost ten years of evaluating courses, we know relatively little about how students handle our learning materials ' (1980:8). Certainly there is a body of research literature available on structuring devices such as objectives and inserted questions in textual material. The research on these and other structuring devices has been reviewed and discussed in the distance education context by Marland and Store (1982) who point out the difficulties of generalising when much of the research has been carried out within an experimental research tradition and outside a distance-teaching context.Much work has been done in recent years in attempts to describe the approach of tertiary level students to the learning task. When describing students' strategies to learning, Pask (1976) reported that some students use a holist strategy. In this approach the subject matter fitted in with other related topics, with 'real life', and with personal experience. In the serialist strategy used by other students there seemed to be an attempt to build understanding out of the component details, logical steps, and operations taken strictly in a linear sequence. Marton and Säljö (1976) ...