Säljö (1979) asked a number of adult students what they understood by learning. Their responses fell into five main categories:

1. Learning as a quantitative increase in knowledge. Learning is acquiring information or ‘knowing a lot’.

2. Learning as memorising. Learning is storing information that can be reproduced.

3. Learning as acquiring facts, skills, and methods that can be retained and used as necessary.

4. Learning as making sense or abstracting meaning. Learning involves relating parts of the subject matter to each other and to the real world.

5. Learning as interpreting and understanding reality in a different way. Learning involves comprehending the world by reinterpreting knowledge. (quoted in Ramsden 1992: 26)

Conceptions 1 to 3 imply a less complex view of learning. Learning is something external to the learner. The last two conceptions look to the 'internal' or personal aspect of learning. Learning is seen as something that you do in order to understand the real world.