Can They Do It in the Real World? Designing for Transfer of Learning

Applying transfer theory

So how does all this apply to our initial scenarios? Let’s first consider learning how to calculate percentages. Being able to solve a simple percentage problem, say 20% of 136, might be considered near(er) transfer, as there is a routine and consistent series of steps to follow (convert the % to a decimal, then multiply the decimal by...). But what if we go into a store and see a jacket we’d like to buy, and the sign says all jackets are on sale for 25% off? Not only that, today there’s an extra 10% off! The rote steps don’t work as well here. The price tag says $245. Do we start by multiplying .25 or .75 times $245? And where does the extra 10% come off? Add to the 25% (.35) or multiply the first result by .90? This is a far(ther) transfer situation. If you’re a math expert who has been called in to assist with development of an e-Learning application to teach percentages, you realize people will, no doubt, regularly come upon this challenge in real life. You’ll also realize that learners will need to do extensive practice with a variety of near and far transfer contexts. You might use a pie analogy at first to help people see that 1/4 of a pie (make mine pecan!) is 25%. And it would be helpful to demonstrate a variety of examples where percentages are used (sales, mortgages, etc.) and help learners use strategies for solving all sorts of percentage problems.

What about the legally defensible hiring practices scenario? This is a far(ther) transfer situation because a great deal of judgment is needed and we can’t put a rote process into place that will take into account every circumstance. We can’t know everything that a potential hire might say or ask. What we do will change depending on the specific circumstances, even though the underlying principles remain the same. In this case, realistic practice with a wide range of situations will always be needed. Learners will need to establish and then utilize underlying principles (such as which types of questions are a definite no-no).

Activities for transfer

If we want to improve transfer, we need instructional activities that involve learners in the types of activities that allow them to practice using the content as it is used in real-life situations. And they need to deal with increasingly complex uses of the content as a whole (not just the parts), and get meaningful feedback and necessary support along the way. That’s a big charge, but that’s what it takes.

Although many folks are charged with developing self-paced online learning because it’s supposed to be less expensive, how cheap is it really if it doesn’t transfer? Research shows that self paced and collaborative activities have different best uses, as Table 2 shows. (They can be used together for maximum effectiveness.)

What I hope you see in Table 2 is that while self-paced activities can be very useful, collaborative activities are often needed as well for instruction where far(ther) transfer is desirable. That doesn’t mean that these collaborative activities have to happen online (many certainly can), but they absolutely need to happen in order for the types of transfer desired to occur.

Example: The time-off policy

Just to make sure this makes sense, let’s reflect on the transfer needs of a situation that I regularly use when I help e-Learning designers learn to support transfer in their online instruction. I like this example because it comes from a real training project. It provides great food for thought, and since the objectives are both procedural and declarative. Here’s the situation:

Company executives want your department to create an e-Learning application for managers who need to appropriately apply Human Resource policies related to time off (unpaid leave, earned vacation time, paid sick leave). The company has experienced myriad problems over the last few years because some managers have applied these policies in problematic ways. Executives fear that lawsuits, and productivity and morale problems, will result if managers don’t apply these polices more appropriately.

What kind of transfer is needed? There may be some rote application (looking up the policy, documenting actions and conversations) but the skill as a whole is pretty complex, requiring myriad decision points and practice application in a wide variety of situations. It is critical that learners extract the fundamental principles and then apply these principles across multiple contexts. Instructional activities will likely revolve around cases, simulations, and problems to solve. Collaborative activities would be appropriate for providing complex feedback, and there will likely be a need to extend the training beyond a single “event,” because mastery of complex skills occurs over time and this is indeed a complex skill.

To give you a feel for the end result of this exercise in designing for transfer, Table 3 illustrates the second of four terminal objectives (and corresponding enabling objectives) that resulted from this design process, the activities selected, information and support tools used during instruction (and later), and graphics and multimedia to support the activities.

What I hope you see here is that the activities (and supporting information, graphics, and multimedia) are designed specifically to involve learners in gaining skill with the wide range of contexts in which judgments need to be made. (For another view of complex design, see “How to Build Composite Learning Progressions Using Approximations” in the December 16, 2002 issue of Learning Solutions Magazine.)

Six mastery problems

Why do folks who build online learning too often concentrate on near(er) transfer and procedural objectives (e.g., simple content interactions like drag and drop exercises and simple quizzes) when far(ther) transfer and declarative objectives (e.g., in-depth tutorials, simulations, feedback and coaching over time, discussions with experts, realistic activities, field work) are what’s needed for learners to gain the desired level of mastery? There are many reasons for this, but here are six really problematic ones, in my opinion:

• Not knowing what critical outcomes are needed from the instruction
• Not influencing stakeholders towards interventions needed for the critical outcomes to occur
• Not realizing that far(ther) transfer is needed for certain critical outcomes
• Deficient skills at designing for transfer
• Mistaken assumptions that online learning has to be all online
• Selecting one tool and building only what that tool will allow

Recognize some common issues here? Yeah, I’d agree that realities and practicalities often make it hard to do what might be totally optimal to ensure transfer. In my mind, however, that doesn’t give us permission to develop the simplistic learning environments I see so often. Many instructional developers think they can choose only between the most expensive forms of instruction (high-fidelity simulations, for example) and the worst forms of instruction (simplistic page turners). That’s simply wrong-headed thinking, in my opinion. There’s a continuum between better and worse choices for instructional strategies. Selecting those that are on the better end doesn’t necessarily have to mean they’re more expensive or time consuming to design and build.

Clients sometimes tell me they just want to build awareness-level training and transfer isn’t a major consideration. I gently (well, maybe not so gently) push back. Is “awareness” training really what’s needed or do people need to be able to do something as a result of the instruction? Sometimes information is enough and formal training with practice and feedback is overkill. But when critical instructional outcomes are needed, designing for adequate transfer isn’t just a nice-to-do activity. We can have a conversation about designing for box-checking another time.

A final question: Did transfer occur?

If we design for transfer, it often makes sense to gauge whether transfer occurred. The classic summative evaluation model was developed by Donald Kirkpatrick in 1975. (Summative evaluation helps summarize the results of instruction, and is conducted after the instructional materials have been used by actual learners and results measured. This is distinguished from “formative evaluation,” which is part of the instructional design process and helps formulate instruction before the materials are delivered to a majority of the targeted learners.) See Table 4 for an outline of the Kirkpatrick model. It purports to evaluate instruction at these four levels. (I say “purports” because it depends on how the evaluation is done.)

Transfer is Level 3 (I could easily argue that Level 4 is about transfer as well) and asks “Can learners apply the knowledge and skills to the job?” If you have put in the effort to design for transfer, it is important to establish the critical outcomes needed from instruction at the front end and figure out what indicators (of progress, mastery, attitudes, or effect) can be used to show that transfer occurred. The key here is to plan, in the beginning stages, when and how to collect and analyze this data. Planning should, of course, involve discussions with stakeholders about what they desire as evidence because their opinions may be different than our own.

The bottom line

We build instruction to impact what people can do in the real world, not what they can do during instruction. For our efforts to be successful and worth the resources put into them, it’s not enough for learners to show “learning” in the classroom, they need to show appropriate application (transfer) in the real world. But research shows that the desired level of transfer happens fairly infrequently. This is a huge problem, but there are effective solutions, even if many instructional experiences don’t take advantage of them.

Instructional strategies that promote transfer include making the context of learning like the context of application, fostering connections between previous and new knowledge, providing extensive and varied practice, providing activities that help learners mine differing situations for underlying principles, and helping learners monitor their learning. Different types of learning objectives have different goals, necessitating different activities and practice opportunities. Procedural, how-to-do, objectives generally involve near(er) transfer, requiring activities and practice that help learners gain skill with utilizing a fairly consistent set of rules. Declarative objectives or why-to-do objectives generally involve far(ther) transfer, requiring activities and practice to help learners gain skill with determining the best course of action.

What transfer concepts tell us is how to be more effective at what we do. Folks who build online learning too often concentrate on near(er) transfer even when far(ther) transfer is what’s needed for learners to gain the desired level of mastery. This is a shame because it often reduces impact and makes it look like it’s online learning, rather than inadequate design, to blame for inadequate outcomes.

If you’re looking for additional ideas on how to design for transfer, check out my earlier columns on designing online interactions (Learning Solutions Magazine, May 3, 2004 and June 29, 2004) and the resources listed below.

References and resources

Clark, R.E. & Voogel, A. (1985). Transfer of Training Principles for Instructional Design. Educational Communications and Technology Journal, 33(3), 113-123.

Greeno, J.G., Smith, D.R., & Moore, J.L. (1993). Transfer of situated learning. In Douglas K. Detterman & Robert J. Sternberg (Eds.) Transfer on trial: intelligence, cognition, and instruction. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing.

Gruber, H., Law, L-C, Mandl, H., & Renkl, A. (1995). Situated Learning and Transfer. In P. Reimann & H. Spada (Eds.), Learning in humans and machines. New York: Elsevier Science.

Perkins, D.N. & Salomon, G. (1994). Transfer of Learning. In Torsten Husén & T. Neville Postlethwaite (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Education, Second Edition. Oxford, England: Pergamon Press. Available: http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/thinking/docs/traencyn.htm

Perkins, D. N. & Salomon, G. (1987). Transfer and teaching thinking. In: Perkins D N, Lochhead J, Bishop J (eds.) 1987 Thinking: The second international conference (pp. 285-303). Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey

Perkins, D.N. & Salomon, G. The Science and Art of Transfer. Available: http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/thinking/docs/trancost.htm

Van Merriënboer, J. J. G., Clark, R. E., & De Croock, M. B. M. (2002). Blueprints for complex learning: The 4C/ID-model. Educational Technology, Research and Development, 50(2), 39-64. Available: http://www.ou.nl/otecresearch/publications/Jeroen%20van%20Merrienboer/Jeroen%20vanMerrienboer%20etrd.pdf

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