While the empirical literature on strategic processing is vast, understanding how and why certain strategies work for certain learners is far from clear. The purpose of this review is to systematically examine the theoretical and empirical literature on strategic process to parse out current conceptual and methodological progress to inform new conceptual and methodological approaches to investigating strategic processing. From a PsycINFO search from 2011 to 2016, a pool of 134 studies was tabled with regard to key conceptual and methodological characteristics along with salient findings. These conceptual and methodological findings were then synthesized to examine how development, three aspects of strategic processing, and personal and environmental factors explained the relation between strategic processing and performance in academic domains. Three major findings emerged: less is known empirically about the developmental nature of strategic processing; quality and conditional use explain performance more consistently than simply frequency of strategy use; and, numerous person and environmental factors shape the degree to which certain strategies are effective for certain learners. A framework for future research based on these three findings is presented.