This paper presents a case study involving a small group of students enrolled in a tutorial program learning introductory college chemistry. The underlying theoretical framework of this investigation was a constructivist view of learning, but more specifically it was based on Ausubel's theory of meaningful learning. The findings of this investigation were: (1) students did undergo qualitative changes in their knowledge, but some students more so than others; (2) these changes were related to the students' learning approach, i.e., positively related to the adoption of a meaningful learning set (a predisposition to learn meaningfully); and to the nature (quality and quantity) of their prior knowledge; and (3) evidence suggested that at least one of the subjects changed from essentially a rote learner to a more meaningful learner. In addition, this study explored Ausubel's condition of adopting a meaningful learning set for meaningful learning to occur. (CW)