Levels of Strategies and Strategic Processing

The influence of levels of processing on performance has seen increasing attention in the research literature over the past few decades. Although there are theories that certain types of processing or strategies should lead to better performance, such as deeper-level processing over surface-level processing, this is not always the case. Instead, there may be environmental or individual differences which lead to changes in the efficacy of specific strategies (whether surface or deep level) for specific purposes. This chapter employs a review of reviews to provide a roadmap to how levels of processing have been considered in past research as well as the current scholarship on the topic. Evidence from the reviews indicates that the relation between levels of processing and performance is not simple and is not direct. Many other individual and contextual factors, as well as facets of the strategies themselves, play an important role in whether certain types and levels of strategies help performance.