Identification of the basic skills and roles in field experience education should answer the question "Can and should educators identify a set of basic skills required for effective performance in experiential learning as part of general education?" New roles required of students in using experiential learning opportunities include initiator, problem solver and decision maker, cultural analyst and strategist, interactor, information source and network developer, free agent, value clarifier, communicator, and recipient. Basic skills needed are observation and recording skills, skills of reflection, gathering information orally, and value clarification. A skill needed in applying experiential learning theory is abstract conceptualization--taking observations and reflections and developing general principles, concepts, and hypotheses. Traditional learning skills serve field experience education students well in career exploration, creative problem solving, and developing learning objectives. To facilitate acquisition of these skills, one should follow a basic set of assumptions, including the following: students should be responsible for acquiring the skills and learning, discovery learning is more effective learning, and processes through which these skills can be learned should be identified and designed. The two challenges are to identify the minimum basic skills and develop experiential learning occasions through which students acquire them prior to field experience placements. (YLB)