This research addresses the actual goals and intentions from which students plan and organize their work in a course of study. Representations can either facilitate or hinder learning and problem solutions. Several salient aspects of adult students' representational systems and how they influenced university study were examined in two studies. The first study investigated how four mature aged students represented their work on a university-level advanced course in educational psychology. Students' goals were directly related to individualized plans for working on the course, but none agreed with the kinds of goals and objectives that were written into the course materials. There was a strong tendency for planning strategies to reflect major goals. Organization, selection, and reading plans were developed in the service of pre-determined purposes. The second study, of relations between goals and working plans, also sought to develop profiles of students' representations of a complex study task over time. Active and reflective abstractions and re-organization was related to better learning outcomes. Better students indicated they would continue developing perspectives while poorer students maintained their more rigid theories about course demands and effective strategies. They did not acquire new understanding or skills for using learning theories. (PN)