In the development of innovative programmes to enhance the application skills of students a neglected population tends to be those students who have difficulty in addressing quite basic problems, but whose educational setting is prescribed by school policies such that more innovative teaching and learning environments are not available to them. This research sets out to develop a diagnostic framework that supports teaching and learning in such situations. Based on empirical research studies and on theoretical constructs of human learning a script analysis framework was developed encompassing criteria across categories of planning, monitoring, heuristic strategies, verification, knowledge resources, and beliefs. The framework represents a synthesis and extension of previous work. Two teachers worked with 47 students throughout a year in a senior secondary mathematics course geared to students intending to study mathematics at tertiary level. Data collection was limited to the type of information available to teachers working under restrictive policies—written protocols of student problems solving together with student comments on their own problem solving processes. Characteristic patterns were identified, confirmed, and used to generate a response quality hierachy within the framework. The resulting structure contained 23 cells and fulfils three purposes: