PART I Open education is defined operationally in terms of the Roland Earths (1971) open education scale plus Bob Young's curriculum scale based upon Basil Bernstein's classification of educational knowledge (collected versus integrated codes). Young's scale on the organization of curriculum knowledge is considered to make explicit ideas partially implicit in the Barth Scale as well as adding a new dimension. This definition of open education has three unifying closely related principles: (i) respect for students as persons (ii) a view of knowledge being in part a personal construct (iii) the extent by which the contents of the curriculum stand in open relation to each other. The limitations of the study and its relevance to ACT schools are stated. The literature on open education is reviewed and criticism is examined. The most important writers on open education influencing the development of the authors ideas were - Roland Barth, Tinsley Beck, Basil Bernstein, Hugh Petrie, Herbert Walberg and Susan Christie Thomas, and Bob Young. PART II A short personal history of the study is given. This outlines the development of the author's ideas and explains how the survey was conducted (plus its problems). An extensive analysis of the survey data was undertaken in terms of ten research questions posed. These related to:- (i) characteristics of respondents (ii) representativeness of the samples (iii) reliability of the instruments (Barth, Young) (iv) unity of the total Barth-Young scale (v) differences between primary teachers, secondary teachers and parents' responses (vi) factorial composition of the scales (vii) a comparison of the logical and factorial dimensions of the scales (viii) comments of respondents (ix) implications of the research (x) further research required. In general the survey data was consistent with the theory in Part I, though it also indicated there was a need for further development of the Barth-Young Scale.