Among the factors least likely to be given due consideration, especially in computer assisted instruction, are student variables. Some reasons which might have hindered research activities involving student, and possibly teacher, cognitive mapping behaviors, learning styles, and media preferences as variables in experimentation are summarized: a public distaste for appraisal of individual intelligence and aptitude factors in students; aversion to the dehumanizing aspects of computerized instructional systems; suspicion of television, educational or other, engendered by the mass media; ignorance of the nature and potential educational significance of learning styles, cognitive mapping behaviors, and media preferences; and a history of difficulty in dealing with these concepts. The three areas of empirical investigation recommended for testing include those which concern the differential effects on student learning of taking into account facets of individual differences compared with not taking them into account; the differential effects on attitudes towards particular types of learning; and the differential effects on learning and attitudes towards learning of various kinds, when students are additionally provided with controls over particular aspects of the instruction/learning process. (VT)