There has been an increased tendency in the past ten years for colleges and universities to offer courses in study techniques. Some of these courses are devoted exclusively to problems connected with reading, but others define study problems very broadly, and include even e x tensive individual counseling as part of a course. Blake (2), from re sults of a survey he conducted in 1953, reports that over 90 per cent of colleges in the United States offer some kind of a study skills course, at least to selected groups of students, and 10 percent re quire such a course of all Freshmen. It is the purpose of this review to examine reports of eval uations of study skills courses to see how effective the courses actually are. The notion that improved study habits, leading in turn to increased academic effectiveness, might result from study-skills courses is intuitively ap pealing, and one does not have to look far in the educational literature to find some rationale for offering these courses. Experiments on transfer of training show that some very general kinds of study skills, such as reasoning, reflective thinking, and ability to memorize, can be taught and effectively transferred to new situations. As early as 1945 it was becoming clear that remedial reading courses at the college level were probably helpful. The issue of what specific techniques should be included in a study-skills course is unsettled be cause of a dearth of clear-cut research findings. Independent experimental investigations of even rel atively simple problems, such as the optimum meth od of reading for study purposes, have led to differ ent recommendations. As a consequence, for many of the topics they treat,the numerous texts and man uals on study techniques express expert opinion rather than results of empirical findings. There has been considerable work of late on study habits inventories, and it may turn out that further work with these will yield a more rational solution to what study courses should include. Although these inventories are still in a preliminary stage of development, there is considerable evidence that these tests measure attributes which are important determiners of achievement (3, 4, 16, 17, 22). Carter (4-8) has worked extensively with study hab its inventories, and his factor analyses suggest that the tests tap four principal variables: (1) morale or self-confidence, (2) scholarly drive and values, (3) study mechanics, and (4) tendency to plan for getting work done. Initially, Carter felt that morale and scholarly drive were most important, but recent work by both Carter (9) and Chahbazi (10) tends to show that study mechanics is more important than was formerly believed. Since study mechanics was harder to measure than the attitudinal variables, its importance was underestimated. Previous work, then, indicates that courses are probably beneficial, that study methods contribute to achievement, but can offer little help on which methods are optimal. It has therefore been incum bent upon those administering study skills courses to carry out evaluations of the courses.