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Molly Cook

Dr. Mullen

Educational Psych 205

7 October 2018

Transfer

Famed psychologist Jean Piaget claimed that “The goal of education is not to increase the

amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create

men who are capable of doing new things.” While a teacher’s job is to teach their students

different facts, strategies, and skills, at the end of the day the application of this knowledge to

other aspects of one’s life is the ultimate goal. This concept, referred to as transfer, is one of the

key components of education, as it acts as the bridge between objective knowledge and practical

application. Despite the inherent importance of transfer, most people are unaware of this concept

yet subconsciously partake in it on a daily basis.

Prior to taking this class, I had a general understanding of what Transferring meant in

relation to education, but was never consciously aware of it nor understood the various types. For

example, the idea of positive transfer made sense to me, but I never considered the idea that

negative transfer, “in which previous learning hinders learning on new tasks” (Durwin et al.

233), was a possibility when learning new subject matter. Likewise, I was unaware that there

were different levels of transfer, such as high road transfer compared to low road transfer. Within

this, I had no idea that there could be so many different subtypes of transfer, such as problem-

solving transfer in high road transfer, or backwarding reaching transfer. While throughout my

academic career I am sure that I have used each type and subset of transfer before, it was entirely

subconscious.
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In the 20th century, the concept of general transfer became prevalent, and was advocated

by the doctrine of formal discipline. This claims that “the study of subjects such as Latin and

geometry could improve individuals’ general cognitive abilities” (Durwin et al. 233). However,

in the early 1920’s, Edward Thorndike produced evidence against general transfer, and instead

advocated for a specific view of transfer, called the theory of identical elements. This claims that

transfer will occur between two learning tasks if skills or elements from one task are likewise

found in the new task. However, these views of transfer are outdated, and many modern

researchers are more interested in the implications of low vs. high road transfer. Instead of

making broad generalization, such as the ones found in specific transfer, researchers Salomon

and Perkins explored what specifically transfers and how it happens. Low road transfer is best

known as a “spontaneous, automatic transfer of highly practiced skills, with little need for

reflective thinking” (Salomon and Perkins, 1989, p. 118). This is best seen once an individual

develops automaticity and is able to perform a skill with little thought or cognitive focus. An

example of low road transfer in everyday life would be one’s ability to read, as reading is vital

both in and outside of school, and requires little to no effort. High road transfer, on the other

hand, relates to a purposeful and conscious effort to apply knowledge from one situation to

another. An example of this could include “a child who has mastered a puzzle [and] may

approach a new and more challenging puzzle by first thinking of the strategies used with the

original puzzle” (Durwin et al. 234). Low and high road transfer did not replace the concepts of

general vs. specific transfer, but merely built upon them to further explain the process of

transferring information.

In general, high road transfer is always the goal of an educator, as high road transfer has

been shown to be more effective than low road transfer. Low road transfer requires little to no
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metacognition, and oftentimes is not sufficient in effectively transferring new knowledge and

skills into long term memory. However, high road transfer is oftentimes rare due to a lack of

spontaneous transferring of information. In order for a student to truly achieve high road transfer,

they must be able to consciously recognize the link between new and old information, abstractly

consider the principles, and map or make appropriate connections between materials.

However, there are a variety of strategies that teachers can implement in order to support

high road transfer. One way to facilitate high road transfer is to take an inventory of student’s

prior knowledge when initially teaching a lesson. This allows for the teacher to prevent negative

transfer from occuring, as she can recognize any incorrect prior knowledge and correct it before

hinders the application of new information. Another way to promote high road transfer is asking

the students to make their own connections to the material, such as forming their own examples.

This creates a deeper understanding of the material compared to rote memorization, as the

students have to think abstractly in order to apply the new information to familiar subject matter.

After allowing students an opportunity to create their own examples, the teacher can present

situations and examples simultaneous rather than in sequence, so that the students can learn the

material as a general concept that can be applied to various situations. Similar to this, the

presentation of various situations can be used to help students understand the similarities and

differences between scenarios. This allows for the students to extract the general concepts as

well as consciously see the practical, real world application of what they are learning.

In general, transfer has never been something that I was consciously aware of, and

likewise I have a tendency to stick to low road transfer via rote memorization as opposed to

actually developing a deeper understanding of the method. However, due to the fact that this

particular course directly relates to my major, the real world application has been vital in my
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understanding of the material. Simply the fact that I am aware that this course is going to be

practical for my future changes the way in which I’m going to approach it. While in an ideal

world I would approach all my courses with this mentality, the practicality of this course should

ultimately help in my efforts to achieve high road transfer.