Abstract
A central problem of psychological research in education is to determine how to make learning more effective and productive. Effective learning means that students reach stated goals; productive learning means that they maximize their performance or goals while parsimoniously using scarce resources such as their own and their teacher's time. Since, as it is argued below, educational research has solved in principle the effectiveness part of the problem to a considerable extent, more energy can now be devoted to the investigation of productivity. The present paper, divided into four parts, illustrates the need, usefulness, and problems of such investigations; summarizes a psychological theory of educational productivity; discusses syntheses of the evidence relevant to the theory; and sets forth prospects for educational policy and subsequent research.