Learning, Remembering, Believing Enhancing Human Performance (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Transfer: Training for Performance
Transfer: Training for Performance
Pages 25-56
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From page 25... ...
One may learn to perform a task quite well during training, according to some criterion, but later find that the acquired knowledge is not sufficient to perform in the day-to-day task environment. The distinction between learning and performance is critical because most training and task contexts differ in some way.
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From page 26... ...
TRANSFER BY IDENTICAL ELEMENTS As noted above, a major issue in developing training programs is the required similarity between the training and performance contexts. If the training context exactly simulates the performance context, transfer should
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From page 27... ...
Some situations that seem to have substantial identical elements produce little or no transfer, and some that do not seem to have similarities produce a substantial amount. One example of transfer of identical elements comes from Singley and Anderson (1989)
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From page 28... ...
That is, there was only a small amount of transfer. These three examples represent very different degrees of transfer: partial transfer, depending on shared rules; virtually perfect transfer despite apparently substantial differences between the training and transfer contexts; and virtually no transfer from one problem to another.
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From page 29... ...
MacKay (1982) has also emphasized transfer based on identical elements at abstract levels, focusing particularly on the domain of motor performance.
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From page 30... ...
Given that the two languages share a single conceptual system, perfect transfer will occur because practicing the phrase in one language is equivalent at the conceptual level to practicing it in the other. The transfer will not be prefect, however, if the unshared structures between two tasks are not well practiced, for example, when one attempts to write with the nondominant hand.
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From page 31... ...
In the difficult cases, performance often seems to be overembedded in the training context, so that the identical elements across contexts are not perceived and so do not have an effect. The failure of learners to recognize and capitalize on identical elements between training and task contexts has been well documented (see Patrick, 1992, and as reviewed by Chipman et al., 1985; Segal et al., 1985~.
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From page 32... ...
proposed that an important component of cognitive skill acquisition, such as learning to use a personal computer operating system or an electronic spreadsheet, is the ability to recognize the situations or conditions under which a particular procedure should be used. If the training context always makes obvious which procedure should be practiced, then an important element of the skill the ability to recognize when to use each procedure is not trained.
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From page 33... ...
Situated Learning Recently there has been a somewhat different approach to the idea of identical elements, one that emphasizes the context in which learning and performing occur. This general approach is called situated learning (e.g., Lave, 1988; Lave and Wenger, 1991)
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From page 34... ...
For example, they find it unlikely that children have symbolic representations of physical properties of objects, such as the flatness of a surface; rather, they propose, children directly perceive flatness and the consequences of it, like stacking. Transfer from one environment to another then depends on common properties that produce invariance of interaction.
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From page 35... ...
The theory that training in the performance context is optimal led the advocates of situated learning to propose that the best form of learning involves an apprenticeship in the real-world context where the training is to be applied. However, in evaluating apprenticeship training, it is important to consider costs external to training per se.
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From page 36... ...
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF TRANSFER A general principle of transfer seems to be that identical elements are necessary. But which elements?
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From page 37... ...
We think not. There are many examples in which abstract instruction has been shown to be superior to concrete instruction when the transfer task is not very similar to the original training situation.
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From page 38... ...
One group of fifth- and sixth-grade students received an explanation of light refraction, while another group did not. On the initial task, where the depth of water was 12 inches, both groups performed about equally well; however, when the water level was changed to 4 inches, the difference between groups became striking: the students without the abstract instruction were confused and made large and persistent errors, while those who had received the abstract instruction corrected their aim quickly.
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From page 39... ...
These studies provide strong support for the benefits of abstract instruction, but it is important to emphasize that abstract instruction in the absence of concrete examples rarely results in transfer. It is well understood among educational and cognitive psychologists that concrete examples are important to facilitate appropriate use of acquired knowledge (Simon, 19809.
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From page 40... ...
. The literature on environmental context effects in verbal learning has a somewhat checkered history.
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From page 41... ...
Generally, the effects of variability in training are positive (see reviews in Cormier, 1984; Shapiro and Schmidt, 1982; Johnson, 1984; Newell, 1985; Schmidt, 1988; and Shea and Zimny, 1983~. Variable practice can facilitate subsequent performance not only in open tasks, where intrinsic variation is high, but also in closed tasks, where variations in the transfer context are relatively minimal (e.g., Kerr and Booth, 1978; see also Chapter 4 for a description of this experiment)
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From page 42... ...
Charney and Reder (1987) have suggested that variable practice facilitates a component of skill acquisition in which the learner becomes able to recognize the appropriate procedure to use in a given context.
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From page 43... ...
Consistent with this idea, analogical transfer has been found to be facilitated by the provision of multiple analogous source problems, along with instructions to compare them (Catrambone and Holyoak, 1989; Gick and Holyoak, 1983~. Yet another possibility is that the set of component processes that is trained under a variable practice regimen is more inclusive than one trained under specific practice.
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From page 44... ...
When variable instances are introduced in training, but the task itself remains the same, learners are faced with varying content but a constant set of task processes, and the positive effects of variable training on transfer to new instances can then be viewed in two ways: first, variability could have a greater strengthening effect on task processes than constant practice (e.g., by eliminating strategies that work only for limited content)
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From page 45... ...
suggested that when a task constitutes a sequence of distinct components or "programs" and has a relatively long duration (e.g., longer than 10 seconds) , practicing subcomponents will produce positive transfer.
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From page 46... ...
There are also variations in how much the combined group of subtasks is practiced between new additions. The aviation training literature suggests that segmentation is highly effective when tasks are recombined by a reverse repetitive-part technique; that is, successively adding task components in reverse order, from those performed latest to those performed earliest.
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From page 47... ...
On the other hand, fractionation does generally produce some positive transfer and may become more effective at higher levels of practice (Knerr et al., 19873. With simplification, there is some danger of negative transfer, since the more complex version of the task may call for new responses to the same stimulus conditions used previously (Lintern and Roscoe, 1980~.
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From page 48... ...
All of these changes over the course of learning have effects on transfer that interact with the relationship between the training and transfer contexts. Automatic processing, in particular, has been suggested to produce potentially negative effects because of the specificity of learning that results
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From page 49... ...
After 10 training sessions, subjects showed positive transfer from consistently mapped tasks to new tasks using the same targets with novel distractors or the same distractors with novel targets, relative to performance with entirely new sets of targets and distractors. In contrast, pronounced negative transfer resulted from reversing responses to consistently mapped targets or distractors, so that previous targets became distractors, or vice versa.
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From page 50... ...
It is obvious when one hits the tennis ball out of the court or when one misses when swinging a baseball bat at a ball. Extrinsic feedback comes from outside the learner, provided either by an individual or a training device.
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From page 51... ...
Positive transfer was predicted in situations with semantically similar stimuli and responses; considerable negative transfer was predicted when the same stimulus items were trained with one set of response terms and then paired with new ones at transfer. Predictions of the Osgood model were not always accurate, particularly with respect to negative transfer (Bugelski and Cadwallader, 1956~.
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From page 52... ...
These findings include a decrease of positive transfer as the stimulus similarity between training and transfer tasks decreases, no transfer when entirely new stimuli and responses are used in the transfer task, large positive transfer when the previously trained responses are used with different stimuli, and negative transfer when the same stimuli are used at transfer but with responses that are different from, but similar to, the originals. Holding suggested that most practical transfer is positive and that negative transfer is most likely when there is a failure to discriminate between distinct training and transfer stimuli that are intended to elicit distinct responses, or when the responses themselves cannot be well discriminated.
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From page 53... ...
There are several reasons for simulating a performance situation rather than actual training in it: the real environment may be too dangerous, too costly, too time consuming, or too rare to find. For example, the National Training Center at Ft.
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From page 54... ...
They compared training using real equipment (costing $11,000) with training using a realistic simulator (costing $1,000)
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From page 55... ...
That is, transfer from the training environment to the performance environment is not a simple function of the overlap in identical elements. Some are more important to be represented in the training task, and which ones are more important depend on what performance features had to be recalled.
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From page 56... ...
Mismatches between task-irrelevant elements of the training and performance context can produce slight decrements in transfer; however, this can be ameliorated by varying the training context with respect to these elements. The principle that training and transfer should have identical elements suggests training should mimic the experiences that are anticipated.
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