Transfer of Learning This is a volume in the Academic Press EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY SERIES Critical comprehensive reviews of research knowledge, theories, principles, and practices Under the editorship of Gary D. Phye Transfer of Learning Cognition, Instruction, and Reasoning Robert E. Haskell Department of Psychology University of New England Biddeford, Maine San Diego San Francisco New York Boston London Sydney Tokyo This Page Intentionally Left Blank Contents Foreword xi Introduction xiii I What Transfer of Learning Is 1. THE STATE OF EDUCATION AND THE DOUBLE TRANSFER OF LEARNING PARADOX A World at Risk: National Reports 4 Corporate Business Training and Transfer 9 The Double Transfer of Learning Paradox: Importance 9 The Double Transfer of Learning Paradox: Failure 12 Conclusion 17 Notes 17 2. TRANSFER OF LEARNING: WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT The Basics of What Transfer of Learning Is 24 Evolution of Transfer from Rats to Chimps to Humans 27 v vi Contents A General Scheme for Understanding the Levels and Kinds of Transfer 29 Importance of Transfer of Learning 32 Tricks of the Trade: Now You See It, Now You Don’t 35 Conclusion 37 Notes 37 3. TO TEACH OR NOT TO TEACH FOR TRANSFER: THAT IS THE QUESTION Instructional Prospectus for the 21st Century 44 Implications for Instruction and a Prescriptive Remedy 47 From Research to Useful Theory 49 Conclusion 54 Notes 54 4. TRANSFER AND EVERYDAY REASONING: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, CULTURAL DIVERSITY, AND DECISION MAKING Reasoning about Everyday Events 58 Reasoning with Single Instances 59 Legal Reasoning and Transfer 62 Personal Development, Human Diversity, and the Problem of Other People’s Minds 63 Social Policy Decision Making and Transfer Thinking 69 Notes 72 5. A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRANSFER AND TRANSFER AS HISTORY Texts on Transfer of Learning 77 General History 77 Seven Models of Transfer 79 General Models of Mind 84 Neo-Identical Elements Model Revisited 85 The Formal Discipline Model Revisited 87 Conclusion 89 Notes 89 Contents vii II What Makes Transfer of Learning Work 6. KNOWLEDGE BASE AND TRANSFER: ON THE USEFULNESS OF USELESS KNOWLEDGE Kinds of Knowledge and What They Do 101 The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge 102 Irrelevant Knowledge: The Counterintuitive Nature of Instructing for Transfer 105 Expertise and Knowledge 107 Conclusion 109 Notes 110 7. THE SPIRIT OF TRANSFER AND PERSONALITY: MOTIVATION, MEANING, AND EMOTION The Spirit of Transfer 116 Personality, Meaning, and Encoding for Transfer 119 Feeling and Transfer: What’s Feeling Got to Do with It? 122 Transfer and the Ancient Notion of the “Good Man” 126 On Transfer and Wisdom 130 Conclusion 131 Notes 132 8. CULTURES AND CONTEXTS OF TRANSFER: SOCIAL ORIGINS AND SUPPORT SYSTEMS The Social Bases of Transfer 136 Context and Transfer 138 Cultures of Transfer 142 Campus Culture and Transfer 146 Conclusion 149 Notes 149 9. WHEN THEORY FAILS: THE IMPORTANCE OF A LEARNER’S THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE FOR TRANSFER When Theory Fails: Children and Theoretical Knowledge 156 Theory, Transfer, and the Learning of Science 158 viii Contents Yet Another (Apparent) Paradox and Mystery of Transfer 160 Ptolemaic Theory: “Pop” Theory, Transfer, and the Cult of Experience 163 Marketplace Instruction: Cyclical Poets 166 Notes 167 10. THE TWO FACES OF PRACTICE: TRANSFER AND THAT OLD-TIME LESSON DRILL What Do We Mean by Practice? 173 Good Practice versus Bad Practice: What They Do 176 Ptolemaic Practice and Practica 180 Transfer Implications for Professional Practica and Supervision 184 Conclusion 186 Notes 186 11. THE SIMILARITY-BASED BRAIN: EVOLUTIONARY AND NEUROLOGICAL BASES OF TRANSFER Evolutionary Origins of Transfer 190 Brain Lateralization and Transfer 191 Neurological Networks, Transfer, and Evolution 194 Neural Modules 197 The Similarity-Based Transfer Brain 199 Invariance-Based Brain Circuits and Transfer 200 Conclusion 202 Notes 202 12. THE HARMONIC STRUCTURE OF MIND: HIGHER LEVEL EVERYDAY TRANSFER THINKING Octaves and Harmonics in Mind 208 Mollusk Shells and the Harmonics of Transfer Thinking 210 Mathematical Structure and Transfer 213 Transfer Ability 215 Notes 217 CODA: DEEP-CONTEXT TEACHING FOR TRANSFER Deep-Context Subject Matter 220 Pop Culture as Deep Context 222 Contents ix Individual Expectations as Deep Context 223 Deep Context as Default Position 224 Applying Deep-Context Teaching 225 Conclusion 227 Notes 227 Index 229 This Page Intentionally Left Blank Foreword The Educational Psychology Series is adding a new dimension to its col- lection of edited volumes. Robert Haskell has authored an exciting new book that will appeal to the educator, to the researcher, and to anyone concerned with how we as human beings cope and adjust to our world. Transfer of Learn- ing: Cognition, Instruction, and Reasoning is a creative work with unlimited poten- tial for impacting the way we view the learning process. Through a unique combination of academic scholarship and an engaging writing style, Robert has written a book that not only challenges current learning theory, but is in- tuitively appealing to the casual observer of human behavior. Within psychology and education, transfer of learning has been one of the most enduring issues for scholars, researchers, and teachers. Though some academicians have suggested that “transfer is dead,” Haskell has provided a frame of reference for a reconstruction of our view of transfer. This exciting new perspective of the transfer process will have an impact, similar to that of Howard Gardner’s book Multiple Intelligences, on educational practices in the classroom. Gary D. Phye Series Editor xi This Page Intentionally Left Blank Introduction When we have lived any time, and have been accustomed to the uniformity of nature, we acquire a general habit, by which we always transfer the known to the unknown, and conceive the latter to resemble the former. —DAVID HUME, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding1 Psychology’s first general law should, I suggest, be a law of generalization. —ROGER N. SHEPARD2 Transfer of learning is our use of past learning when learning something new and the application of that learning to both similar and new situations. At first glance, it’s very simple. Transfer of learning, however, is the very foun- dation of learning, thinking, and problem solving. Despite the importance of transfer of learning, research findings over the past nine decades clearly show that as individuals, and as educational institutions, we have failed to achieve transfer of learning on any significant level. Time and again in the literature, beginning with the work of Edward Thorndike (1874–1949) in 1901 to the present, the verdict has been as Doug- las Detterman observes: “If there is a general conclusion to be drawn from the research on transfer, it is that the lack of general transfer is pervasive and sur- prisingly consistent.”3 In the preface to their edited book, Teaching for Transfer,4 Ann McKeough, Judy Lupart, and Anthony Marini lament Transfer of learning is universally accepted as the ultimate aim of teaching. However, achieving this goal is one of teaching’s most formidable problems. Researchers have been more successful in showing how people fail to transfer learning than they have been in producing it, and teachers and employers alike bemoan students’ inability to use what they have learned.5 The implications of this general failure are serious not only for a society in- creasingly dependent on what is called “knowledge workers,” as opposed to xiii xiv Introduction skilled workers, but for the democratic process as well. The Founding Fathers of the U.S. Constitution understood that for a democracy to work well an in- formed populace is required; the term informed includes the ability to think and reason well. Transfer of learning underlies the ability to think, reason, plan, and to make good decisions. So if this is the case, why write a book on transfer of learning? Is this book going to lament past failures, cry about our bleak future, or just offer a postgame motivational pep talk? The answer is no to all of these. In the foreword to a 1987 book, Edwin Fleishman states, “Given the cen- trality of the topic in so many areas of basic research and application, it is in- deed surprising that there has been no comprehensive book on the subject.”6 I think we now know more than enough to offer workable solutions to the transfer of learning problem. As two psychologists of a recent research-based and technical book on transfer of learning note, “It is especially timely to re- vive interest in transfer now because detailed, comprehensive theories of skill acquisition now exist.”7 Research data on transfer are now available and have awaited an appropriate compilation. Since the classic work of psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1901, interest in the subject has waned within the fields of psychology and education. How- ever, there is now considerable rigorous psychological research on transfer, with most of the research coming from the fields of instructional and cogni- tive psychology, the latter a subfield of psychology concerned with investi- gating how we think, reason, and process information. Though it’s generally agreed that transfer of learning is most elusive to demonstrate, it is, never- theless, the key to all effective instruction and learning. For education to be effective, then, curricula must be designed with our eyes focused on transfer of learning, particularly for poorer students. For as Carl Bereiter observes “transfer is usually poorest with students who need it most.”8 And I should add, they need it most because they are poorest at transfer. Although I do not intend to rediscover the transfer of learning wheel, I do intend to reinvent transfer of learning and revise what it means to think. I will show that the very structure of thinking and learning is transfer of learning by presenting a prescriptive theory of learning and instruction that opposes what many colleagues and the popular educational zeitgeist believe to be true.