When raw conversion applications first started appearing as consumer products that any digital photographer could buy and use, the primary users of such products often had training and experience processing film and printing from that film in the darkroom. Many of the tools offered by photo processing applications are presented in a way that is understandable to someone with darkroom training and experience.

Almost all digital conversion tools seem to assume the user has a basic understanding of photographic processing that goes all the way back to the darkroom. This understanding is based on recognizing how light used to illuminate a scene and the light/filters used in printing and enlarging will affect the resulting photograph. This informs what can be done in the darkroom - or by extension, on the computer. If one understands light in all of the many facets that apply to creating photographs, then one will more intuitively understand what the adjustments in photo processing applications do to adjust for the light that was used to take an image of a scene and to introduce processes that have their origins in chemical darkrooms.

Instead of trying to find resources that explain the principles of lighting and processing a photo using the documentation for the controls of a specific raw processing application, perhaps it would be more helpful to look for more general resources that discuss light and how the way we light a scene and how we then process that light we captured will affect the resulting photograph we create.

At least as important, I'd like to learn how to look at my image, that I already know isn't quite right, and recognize how it isn't right, and what tool will allow me to fix it.

I think for many of us who don't have a strong background in the analog film darkroom, or at least not with color film, the way we learned it was by playing around with the sliders enough until we recognized what they do, and in which direction they work when they are moved a certain direction. The next step is to start seeing some of the same things in the light illuminating scenes and, when possible, altering the light or adjusting our camera's settings before we take the shot.

One way to learn how the camera does some of what it does to produce a jpeg is to use the camera manufacturer's own raw processing software. Most of them will open a raw image by applying the in-camera settings at the time the image was captured. If it's not the default behavior, it's usually at least an option. You can then see what the camera's processing engine selected for things such as white balance, contrast/highlights/shadows/curves/etc.

When you open a raw file with a third party raw conversion application, you're at the mercy of the application's default settings, which can be quite different from your camera's jpeg processing engine. Most of them ignore some or all of the in-camera settings that produced the camera generated JPEG or jpeg preview image attached to the raw file.

For more regarding that, please see:
Why do RAW images look worse than JPEGs in editing programs?
Why is there a loss of quality from camera to computer screen
While shooting in RAW, do you have to post-process it to make the picture look good?
Are paler raw images normal for a newer sensor with higher dynamic range?

Cambridge In Color has a few articles you might find helpful:
CAMERA HISTOGRAMS: TONES & CONTRAST
CAMERA HISTOGRAMS: LUMINOSITY & COLOR
TUTORIALS: WHITE BALANCE
TUTORIALS: PHOTOSHOP LEVELS
TUTORIALS: PHOTOSHOP CURVES
CONVERTING A COLOR PHOTO INTO BLACK & WHITE

They're all grouped on this page:
PHOTO EDITING TUTORIALS