Problem Solving

Transfer

Presentation by: Vicole Nguyen

Transfer

When something you learn in one situation affects how you learn or perform in another situation

Positive vs. Negative Transfer

• Positive transfer-when learning in one situation facilitates learning in another situation

• Negative transfer-when something learned is hindered in another situation

Vertical vs. Lateral Transfer

• Vertical transfer-when learning helps make the building blocks on more basic information and procedures

• Lateral transfer-when the knowledge of one thing is helpful but not necessary to be able to learn the other

Near vs. Far Transfer

• Near transfer-involves situations or problems that are similar in both superficial characteristics and underlying relationships

• Far transfer-two situations that are similar in one or more underlying relationships but are different on the surface

Specific vs. General Transfer

• Specific transfer-original learning task and the transfer task overlap in some way

• General transfer-the original task and the transfer task are different in both content and structure

Theories of Transfer

Formal Discipline

• Like any other muscle, you must exercise the brain, the more you work it out & practice, the better you will be

• They emphasize the importance and likelihood of general transfer, the idea being that learning in one situation improves learning and performance in another situation regardless of how different the two situations might be

• Example: trying to learn a poem each day will help you improve your poem memorization or using a computer joystick to move an animal to different places

Early Behaviorist Theory

• Thorndike proposed that transfer occurs only when the original and transfer tasks have identical elements

• Example: finding the area of rectangles can help you find the area of other 2-dimensional shapes

Later Behaviorist Theory

• When stimuli and responses are similar in the two situations, maximal positive transfer

  will occur.

• When stimuli are different and responses are similar, some positive transfer will occur.

• When stimuli are similar and responses are different, negative transfer will occur.

• Example: copying and pasting can work on a word document as well as emails, spreadsheets, etc.

Information Processing Perspective: Importance of Retrieval

• Transfer can occur when learners retrieve things they had previously learned in a situation that would be useful.

• To make a connection between the new information/situation and relevant prior knowledge, they must have both things working simultaneously

Contextual Perspective: Situated Learning

• Cognitive theorists have proposed that a good deal of what we learn is context specific.

• Sometimes at school, skills and knowledge don't necessarily transfer from one subject to another.

Contemporary View of General Transfer: Learning How to Learn

• General transfer isn’t as common as specific transfer, but learning occurring at one time can facilitate learning at another time if, in the process, the individual learns how to learn.

Factors Affecting Transfer

• Meaningful learning promotes better transfer than rote learning.

• The more thoroughly something is learned, the more likely it is to be transferred to a new situation.

• The more similar two situations are, the more likely it is that something learned in one situation will be applied to the other situation.

• Principles are more easily transferred than discrete facts.

Factors Affecting Transfer

• Numerous and varied examples and opportunities for practice increase the extent to which information and skills will be applied to new situations.

• The probability of transfer decreases as the time interval between the original task and the transfer task increases.

• Transfer increases when the cultural environment encourages and expects transfer

Multiple Choice

Which is an example of positive transfer?

• Learning how to drive manual could you drive stick shift

• A number having more numbers means that it is bigger

• Speaking Mandarin transfers over to speaking English

• Knowing how to read can help your spelling

Multiple Choice

Which is NOT an example of vertical transfer?

• Knowing addition and subtraction before moving on to multiplication and division

• Knowing how to speak Spanish in order to speak English

• Knowing grammar rules in order to write sentences

• Knowing where the appendix is to do an appendectomy

Multiple Choice

Which is an example of general transfer?

• the study habits of learning physics were to help the learning in sociology

• knowing human anatomy can help a vet student learn the anatomy of a cat

• a student who knows English can be able to learn German

Multiple Choice

Memorizing a multiplication table can facilitate deeper learning than applying multiplying in buying groceries.

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

Which theory would psychologists agree least with?

• Historical Perspective of Formal Discipline

• Behaviorist Theory: Thorndike's Identical Elements

• Contemporary View of General Transfer

• Contextual Perspective of Situated Learning

Multiple Choice

Using exponential decay to find the depreciation of cars is an example of which type of transfer?

• Vertical Transfer

• Lateral Transfer

• Far Transfer

• Postive Transfer