In academic contexts, self-sufficient learners engage autonomously in study activities that promote effective criterion performance. Their expertness in studying presumably increases as students develop and move from one educational level to another. A correlational investigation was undertaken to evaluate four hypotheses about differences across junior high school, senior high school, and college in the deployment and effectiveness of various categories of study activities. The Study Activity Survey and the Course Questionnaire were completed by students enrolled in a college level European history course (N=236), five senior high school courses in American history or government (N=229), and six junior high school courses in American history (N=222). The results indicated that across these educational levels: (1) students increasingly reported engaging in generative cognitive activities and planful self-management activities; (2) students judged their courses, in some respects, to increase in the demands they made and the supports they provided for engaging in such activities; (3) the greater the generativity of the cognitive activities engaged in, the greater their effectiveness in terms of grades received; and (4) negligible differences emerged in the tendency to match differential study-activity engagement to relative study-activity effectiveness. This last finding is interpreted as evidence against the proposition that expertness in studying increases with the educational level attained. (NB)