The purpose of this paper is to improve knowledge of the interaction between the learner, the teaching arrangement, and the content. For practical purposes the combination of the teaching arrangement and the content has been called the task, as these cannot successfully be treated separately in the teaching-learning process. Through analysis of pupil-task interactions we should be able to discover relationships between the pupil and the task which are crucial to the outcomes of learning in terms of both achievement and attitudes to the task at hand. Different research approaches are classified which have contributed to present understanding of the learner-task interaction. The basic criterion for selection of research approaches has been the interactive character of the research effort as well as its heuristic value. A set of task dimensions to be observed are extracted from empirical research on learner-task interaction. These are: goals, evaluative criteria, structure, complexity, time constraints, and incentive value. Because these dimensions cannot be isolated from social and cultural processes, the study of learner-task interactions cannot be studied only in terms of individual and task characteristics. (MV)