a further observation about the scope of each side of a dfe item is that, as well as being more or less generic or specific, it can make an "implicit" reference to the teaching and learning activities or the learning objectives (respectively). an example of this is when reference is made to 'the course' or 'learning'. consider the following: 'the course helped me to learn'. in this case the reference to the course is an implicit reference to all of the teaching and learning activities the student experienced. similarly, the reference to 'learning' in this case implies all of the learning objectives in the course. in one sense implicit references to either the learning objectives or the teaching and learning activities is the most generic level of reference, but a distinction is made in dfe between generic or general references to either tlas or lobs and implicit references.