Purpose. The primary goal of this commentary was to consider the future directions that researchers dealing with levels and regulation of strategies and with approaches to learning may wish to pursue in the years to come.Procedure. In order to accomplish this goal, the first step was to look for any common ground shared by authors contributing to this Special Issue. That common ground represented a convergence of evidence for these programmes of research; in effect, where they intersect. Next, theoretical, methodological, and data-analytic barriers that have long impeded progress within and across these research communities were identified.Outcome. Recommendations were offered that might serve to diminish or remove those existing barriers and, thus, open new avenues of inquiry.It is a privilege to serve as a commentator for this Special Issue that examines the complicated relation between depth and regulation of strategic processing, especially in the light of the international scholars chosen as contributors. According to the editors, the purpose of this issue is to consider how levels of cognitive strategy use among students relate to their metacognitive or self-regulatory behaviours (Dinsmore & Fryer, 2018). Contributors to the issue were to be guided by three overarching questions:1. What is the association between cognitive and metacognitive processing during academic performance in varied contexts (e.g., text, technology rich environments, university settings)? 2. How does the shifting developmental landscape change associations between depth of processing and monitoring and regulation of learning on academic performance? 3. Do individuals' competence help explain associations between monitoring, regulation, and strategic processing? (p. 2)To the credit of the editors, these are timely, important, and ambitious questions to be posed at this juncture when theory and research into strategic processing approach the half-century mark. Any issue that effectively addresses any one of these complex questions