Research into student learning has been based on two main theoretical sources: information processing (IP), and contextually based work on students' approaches to learning (SAL). The cross-fertilisation has been valuable, but it has led to ambiguities and misunderstandings, evident in the recent literature, about constructs, methodology, and of particular concern here, the development and interpretation of inventories of learning/study processes. The basic issue revolves around a conception of student learning as taking place within-the-student, as IP models appear to assume, or within-the-teaching/learning-context, as the SAL tradition emphasises. It is suggested that student learning is best construed within a teaching/learning context that functions as an 'open system', a model that brings some clarity to the use and interpretation of study process inventories, and that locates their value in yielding functionally useful data to researchers, teachers, and staff developers.