Recasting transfer as a socio-personal process of adaptable learning

Transfer is usually cast as an educational, rather than learning, problem. Yet, seeking to adapt what individuals know from one circumstance to another is a process more helpfully associated with learning, than a hybrid one called transfer. Adaptability comprises individuals construing what they exp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Educational research review 2013-01, Vol.8 (June 2013), p.5-13
Main Author: Billett, Stephen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptability
Adaptive learning
Cognition
Cognitive Development
Cognitive processes
Cognitive Psychology
Construal
Construction
Constructivism (Learning)
Context effect
Educational Environment
Educational programmes
Educational Psychology
Educational research
Higher education
Knowledge
Labelling
Learning
Learning Processes
Mediation
Reconciliation
Role of Education
Social Psychology
Transfer
Transfer of Training
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Summary:Transfer is usually cast as an educational, rather than learning, problem. Yet, seeking to adapt what individuals know from one circumstance to another is a process more helpfully associated with learning, than a hybrid one called transfer. Adaptability comprises individuals construing what they experience, then aligning and reconciling with what they know, and enacting responses. This learning process is mediated by societal and cultural contributions shaping tasks, their goals and solutions and also by individuals’ capacities and interest, as shaped by their ontogenies (i.e. socially derived life histories). Labelling this process ‘transfer’ arises from concerns about educational institutions’ key rationale: that what is learnt through them should be applicable elsewhere. However, expectations of educational provisions generating wholesale adaptable learning (i.e. transferable knowledge) are unrealistic because this learning is mediated by culturally, societally and situationally derived facts and personal factors. To moderate expectations and inform practice, transfer of knowledge needs to be understood as human thinking and acting mediated both internally (intra-psychologically) as well as inter-psychologically (from social and brute suggestions beyond the individual). Consequently, a socio-personal conception of adaptability is advanced here to illuminate this process. Through intra- as well inter-psychological mediation, it comprises individuals construing what is experienced, reconciliation with what they know and constructing new knowledge or adaptability.
ISSN:1747-938X
1878-0385
DOI:10.1016/j.edurev.2012.05.004