From a total enrollment of 440 students in business communication classes, 270 voluntarily participated in a study of the relationship between the placement of performance objectives and reading comprehension. Students were tested for reading comprehension and were randomly assigned to one of two experiments and to pre-, post-, or no-objective groups. The two experiments differed in the reading passage used; in both cases, intentional and unintentional learning were tested with an immediate posttest and a four-week retention test. Analysis of the results indicated that performance objectives were more effective with difficult material and that students with medium or high reading comprehension learned better when no performance objectives were involved. However, when performance objectives were made available, postobjectives were more effective than were preobjectives, in increasing both intentional and unintentional learning. (Author/AA)