Summary.The essential point of the present study is that human learning should be studied from a second‐order perspective. This means that the emphasis is on how people see and understand the world around them. Attention is given to the ways in which students tackle the studying of a text, using the distinction introduced by Marton and Säljö between a deep‐level and a surface‐level approach. Also investigated is the extent to which these study strategies can be related to the views of students on learning itself (learning conceptions) and the quality of the learning outcome. It turned out that a learning outcome of relatively high quality must be especially associated with deep‐level approach and a constructive learning c