Far Transfer Essay
From a cognitive perspective, analyze the effect of transfer of training on problem solving. Evaluate the impact of near transfer and far transfer in any one applied area.
What is Transfer?
Transfer is defined as the application of skill or knowledge gained in one situation in the performance of a new, novel task (Pennington, Nicolich & Rahm, 1995). Whenever knowledge previously acquired influences current learning, transfer as occurred (Woolfolk, 1995). For example, learning to get along with family members may prepare an individual to interact in a positive way with peers, learning to drive a car helps to prepare for learning to drive a van later, learning mathematics prepares for the study of physics and chess players may even become …show more content…
However, there has been increasing evidence that far transfer, as well as near transfer, can be observed in an educational environment. In a study carried out by Wong, Lawson and Keeves (2002) self-explanation was found to have a positive effect on far transfer, with students who used the self-explanation method of learning exhibiting better performance on far transfer tasks. Tomic (1995) carried out research on primary school children of average ability investigating the effects of an inductive reasoning training programme for teaching children and found that the results demonstrated significant positive training effect on children’s inductive reasoning tasks and a near-far transfer was observed, with children able to complete tasks for which they had not been trained, however, far-far transfer was not observed. A study carried out by Kapa (2007) involving the introduction of metacognitive support mechanisms (MSMs) in different phases of the problem solving process designed to influence student’s transfer from near transfer to far transfer, which showed that the MSMs administered were significantly effective for the improvement of both near and far transfer on the problem solving process. This demonstrates that far transfer can be achieved in an educational environment, which is a desirable outcome as it allows what is learned in the classroom to be applied in ‘real world’ situations (Woolfolk,
What is Transfer?
Transfer is defined as the application of skill or knowledge gained in one situation in the performance of a new, novel task (Pennington, Nicolich & Rahm, 1995). Whenever knowledge previously acquired influences current learning, transfer as occurred (Woolfolk, 1995). For example, learning to get along with family members may prepare an individual to interact in a positive way with peers, learning to drive a car helps to prepare for learning to drive a van later, learning mathematics prepares for the study of physics and chess players may even become …show more content…
However, there has been increasing evidence that far transfer, as well as near transfer, can be observed in an educational environment. In a study carried out by Wong, Lawson and Keeves (2002) self-explanation was found to have a positive effect on far transfer, with students who used the self-explanation method of learning exhibiting better performance on far transfer tasks. Tomic (1995) carried out research on primary school children of average ability investigating the effects of an inductive reasoning training programme for teaching children and found that the results demonstrated significant positive training effect on children’s inductive reasoning tasks and a near-far transfer was observed, with children able to complete tasks for which they had not been trained, however, far-far transfer was not observed. A study carried out by Kapa (2007) involving the introduction of metacognitive support mechanisms (MSMs) in different phases of the problem solving process designed to influence student’s transfer from near transfer to far transfer, which showed that the MSMs administered were significantly effective for the improvement of both near and far transfer on the problem solving process. This demonstrates that far transfer can be achieved in an educational environment, which is a desirable outcome as it allows what is learned in the classroom to be applied in ‘real world’ situations (Woolfolk,