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

Why do we build instruction? Seems like a “duh” kind of question for those of us who build instructional materials for a living, but it actually deserves more thought than you might expect.

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There are many reasons for building instruction, but one of the more critical reasons is to impact what people can do in the real world. Students are not taught math so they can solve problems at the end of each chapter. They are taught math so they can handle purchases, understand mortgages and other financing, and complete mathematical tasks required by their jobs.

Management training is not provided so that managers can perform well during instruction. The desired outcome is good performance on the job. As developers of instruction, we often expect learning to be applied in numerous situations, but our expectations and reality are quite different.

Consider the following scenarios:

• Teachers teach how to do percentages. Their students can solve percentages problems in class but they can’t determine the final price of a sale item in the store, given the discount amount.
• A training group provides instruction on legally defensible hiring practices but afterwards, managers’ actual interviewing practices contain critical legal inadequacies. In addition, many of these managers don’t apply these concepts to the wording of job descriptions.

What we have in these (and similar) situations is a problem with transfer of learning. Transfer of learning means that something learned in one situation can be applied in another. In these two examples, transfer has not occurred to the degree needed.

What is transfer?

Unfortunately, situations like these aren’t unusual. Research shows that transfer doesn’t happen just because instruction is provided. Rather, the preponderance of evidence, from Thorndike’s studies in the early 20^th century through more recent research, shows that the desired transfer from instruction to application happens relatively infrequently. People often do not understand how what they know can be applied in various situations because they often don’t make the connections we expect them to make. This is undeniably a problem since transfer is the primary goal of instruction. Although studies have shown that certain instructional strategies can dramatically improve transfer, another problem is that many e-Learning applications aren’t designed to take advantage of them.

Why don’t we regularly design for transfer, if transfer is so critical to our success and the success of our stakeholders? Here are a few reasons. Many folks who design instruction think transfer takes care of itself (it certainly doesn’t). Many don’t know how to create online instruction that makes transfer more likely. Many realize transfer is important, but design for relatively low levels of transfer (what I will be calling near(er) transfer) when higher levels (what I will be calling far(ther) transfer) are needed.

Back to my initial question about why we design instruction — if we don’t design for transfer, why design instruction at all? Let’s look at some of the basics that help us understand how transfer works and then consider how this information can be used to build e-Learning that creates more transferable skills and knowledge.

”Learning” vs. transfer

The student who can solve the percentage problems at the end of the percentages chapter in his math text has “learned” how to do percentages. A manager who can select the unlawful phrases in a simulated interview has “learned” which phrases are unlawful. What does it mean, then, if they cannot solve percentage problems in a store or build a lawfully worded real-life job interview? It means that there is a critical difference between learning during instruction and application of that learning in the real world. Consider this: It takes far more skill to actually do the interview than just discriminate between good and bad wording. The bottom line is that real life application is almost always much more complex than the instruction. Unless we take into account the inevitable complexities of real-world application, the instruction we design is likely to be far too simplistic for transfer to occur to the degree needed. And that means the instruction we build is less effective (often by far) than is needed to justify the time and expense.

Near(er) vs. far(ther) transfer

You may have noticed that I have referred a few times to the degree of transfer needed. Degree of transfer refers to whether application in the real world is a lot like the instructional context or quite different from it. For example, Mary takes a class on how to handle an angry customer. She learns a three-step process in the course that includes very careful listening, repeating back to the customer what she has heard, and then suggesting solutions. In the course, learners practice this process over and over in a variety of cases in order to get practice with the wide range of situations where this may be useful. If she goes back to the job and is able to use the process exactly as she was taught, the degree of transfer isn’t terribly far. Being able to adapt this process when the exact sequence doesn’t make sense means the degree of transfer is far(ther), because she is using the skill in a new context.

This concept is called near and far transfer. That’s a bit of a misnomer because it’s a continuum from near(er) to far(ther) transfer, with potentially higher degrees of transfer along the way. Near(er) transfer is transfer between very similar contexts. For example, a technician is trained to replace the hard drive on a computer with a similar or the same type of hard drive. Or a clerk receives training to use and troubleshoot the mail sorting equipment and then performs these exact same skills on the job. Near(er) transfer is generally what is needed for tasks that are routine and consistent.

Far(ther) transfer refers to learning applied in real life situations that are somewhat to greatly different than the learning contexts. This is most needed for tasks that are executed differently depending on the situation. The hallmark of far(ther) transfer is the need to adapt actions based on judgment. Knowing how to use the knowledge of percentages to determine the discount on a sale is farther transfer than being able to do percentage problems in a math text. Applying project management lessons to home construction projects is farther transfer than applying it on the job, where the learning occurred.

Instructional strategies for transfer

So, how can we help transfer occur to a greater degree? Research shows that the strategies summarized in Table 1 can dramatically improve transfer from instruction to the real world.

David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon synthesized research findings about transfer and concluded that there are two mechanisms for transfer that they called “low road” and “high road.” Low road transfer relates to near transfer situations, where instruction and learning are similar. In that case, teaching learners to perform relatively automatically with extensive practice makes sense. On the other hand, what is needed in high road transfer, where performance requires a fair degree of judgment and skills are performed differently in different circumstances, is varied practice, self-monitoring, and generalizing about how the learning will be applied in the real world.

Transfer and learning objectives

Because e-Learning designers are accustomed to thinking about outcomes of instruction in terms of learning objectives, it may be helpful to see how these concepts tie into learning objectives. Learning objectives can be divided into two types: procedural and declarative. Procedural objectives involve a sequence of steps. An example of a procedural objective is: The learner will be able to replace the hard drive in the XYZ computer chassis in less than 15 minutes. Declarative objectives, on the other hand, involve conceptual knowledge and fundamental principles — for example: The learner will determine what course of action to take if the circumstances violate company ethics policies.

Procedural objectives generally involve near(er) transfer. The role of instructional activities and practice is to help learners gain skill in utilizing a fairly consistent set of rules. Similar contexts, seeing connections, extensive practice, and self monitoring make sense as instructional strategies.

Declarative objectives generally involve far(ther) transfer. The role of instructional activities and practice is to help learners gain skill with determining the best course of action. What is desired, for declarative objectives, is flexible adaptation of skills to a variety of contexts and situations. Similar contexts, seeing connections. extensive and varied practice, extracting underlying principles, and self monitoring make sense as instructional strategies.

In general, research shows that behavioral training methods tend to better promote procedural objectives and near(er) transfer, while more cognitive methods tend to better promote declarative objectives and far(ther) transfer. (Note: Bill Brandon’s June 1, 2004 article in "Learning Solutions Magazine, How Do People Learn? Some New Ideas for e-Learning Designers, " provides a good overview of these learning theories.)

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