This paper explores "meaningful learning" as influenced by "constructivism." The study focused on assessing and comparing the quality of essays written by students who learnt a given topic in a classroom setting ("control") to those who learnt the same topic in the field ("experimental"). The objective was to find out whether fieldwork carried out by "A" level geography students enhanced "deep level learning" as opposed to "surface level learning" as reflected by the quality of essays. The essays were assessed using the Structure of Observed Learning Outcome (the SOLO Taxonomy). The results indicate that learning a given topic through fieldwork as opposed to the classroom enhances "deep level learning" as evidenced by the quality of essays written by the "experimental" group (showed an ability to focus on the underlying meaning of the learnt material) compared to those by the "control" group (concentrated more on learning facts that were often disjointed). (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)