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If "learning productivity" is the enhancement of educational productivity by increasing learning rather than merely decreasing expenditures, we must give attention to student study effort. The effectiveness of such effort will be a function of both time-on-task and the quality-the intensity or effectiveness-of that study time. And clearly, successful efforts to increase either (or both) the time-on-task or the effectiveness of that time will increase the productivity of the higher educational enterprise.

The following notes are some initial thoughts and questions on study effort as an important variable in learning productivity.

• How much time do students study daily? What predicts, or correlates with, this time-on-task? How does time-on-task relate to credit load, or full- or part-time student status? That is, do full-time students put in more or less study time per course credit as part-time students? 
• Are other specific scheduled demands on a student's time such as employment, family obligations commuting, athletics, or student politics the main competitor to study time? Or, is the main competitor more "personal" or "unscheduled," such as some might call "wasted?" 
• If the main competitor to study time is the former-i.e., employment or other activities or obligations-how can institutional policy lessen these? 
• To the extent that the competitor to study time is more personal or discretionary, how can student habits or life styles be altered to make more provision for study? 
• How much should students study? Are amount of time, intensity, and effectiveness of study a function of habits and values derived from parents and peers, and thus in important part from social class? Is there an extent to which our emphasis on access (less rigorous standards, and more accommodation to the non-traditional student) needs to make us more accepting of study habits that are shorter (in time demands) and less efficient (in effective concentration or focus), that we would expect? 
• Apart from the sheer time spent on study, what do we know of its quality? Does the main difference between effective and ineffective study lie less in the time-on-task and more on the student's ability to focus or concentrate in the time available? What are the predictors or correlates of this quality of study effort? How and when were these habits learned, and how can they be taught to, or enhanced in, college students? 
• How much of the difference between highly effective study and less effective study is tied to the student's perception? That is, do students who study very little or ineffectively perceive this to be? Or is the problem that they genuinely that believe that they are studying hard? 
• To what degree is the difference between highly effective and less effective study a function of a peer culture that rewards "getting by" and the conspicuous refusal to do what the adult culture (in this case, the college) wants them to do?