THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY WAS TO COMPARE THE CONCEPT ATTAINMENT BEHAVIOR EFFECTS OF (1) OPTIMAL AND MINIMAL INSTRUCTION, (2) TWO LEVELS OF MONETARY INCENTIVE, AND (3) HIGH AND LOW COMPETITION. EIGHTY COLLEGE STUDENTS WERE GIVEN TWO CONCEPT ATTAINMENT TASKS. ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE WAS USED TO TEST THE EFFECTS OF INSTRUCTIONS, MONETARY INCENTIVES, COMPETITION, SEQUENCE OF CONCEPTS, TYPE OF CONCEPT, ORDER OF CONCEPTS, AND TYPE OF ERROR. IT WAS CONCLUDED THAT THE EFFECT OF INSTRUCTIONS ON CONCEPT ATTAINMENT IS A FUNCTION OF THE TYPE OF INFORMATION PRESENTED. CONCEPT ATTAINMENT WAS DEFINITELY FACILITATED WHEN INFORMATION ABOUT THE NATURE OF CONCEPTS TO BE ATTAINED WAS PROVIDED STUDENTS BEFOREHAND. THE EFFECTS OF THE TWO LEVELS OF MONETARY INCENTIVE AND THE TWO LEVELS OF COMPETITION WERE NOT SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT. IN ADDITION, NEITHER THE CONCEPT TYPE USED IN THESE EXPERIMENTS NOR THE SEQUENCE OF THESE CONCEPTS HAD SIGNIFICANT EFFECTS. (GD)