Robert E. Haskell

Chapter 2 – Transfer of Learning: What It Is and Why It's Important

Transfer of learning refers to how previous learning influences current and future learning, and how past or current learning is applied or adapted to similar or novel situations. It is the neurocognitive mechanism underlying many phenomena and it acts as the basis of mental abstraction, analogical relations, classification, generalization, generic thinking, induction, invariance, isomorphic relations, logical inference, metaphor, and constructing mental models. The research on teaching for transfer clearly shows that for transfer to occur, the original learning must be repeatedly reinforced with multiple examples or similar concepts in multiple contexts, and on different levels and orders of magnitude. The history of science, invention, technology transfer, and everyday life is replete with people who are good at transfer. Many advances in science are made on the basis of a simple type of transfer. Transfer of learning creates creativity and learning itself and it helps to efficiently store, remember, integrate, process, and retrieve information.

Transfer of Learning: What It Is and Why It's Important

Transfer of learning refers to how previous learning influences current and future learning, and how past or current learning is applied or adapted to similar or novel situations. It is the neurocognitive mechanism underlying many phenomena and it acts as the basis of mental abstraction, analogical relations, classification, generalization, generic thinking, induction, invariance, isomorphic relations, logical inference, metaphor, and constructing mental models. The research on teaching for transfer clearly shows that for transfer to occur, the original learning must be repeatedly reinforced with multiple examples or similar concepts in multiple contexts, and on different levels and orders of magnitude. The history of science, invention, technology transfer, and everyday life is replete with people who are good at transfer. Many advances in science are made on the basis of a simple type of transfer. Transfer of learning creates creativity and learning itself and it helps to efficiently store, remember, integrate, process, and retrieve information.

The Matrix of Group Talk: An Empirical Method of Analysis and Validation.

ed from the analysis in the next question, the subliteral referents of the &dquo;literal&dquo; verbal data refer to the two trainers in the group. The particular journalist mentioned also refers to both trainers as do the two newspapers that were discussed. In short, the group is &dquo;nonconsciously&dquo; using a literal topic as a metaphorical or analogic vehicle to discuss avoided affective concerns about the two trainers. Indeed, the discussion forms an isomorphic set of matrices on multiple levels of cognitive and psycholinguistic functioning. METHODS OF ANALYSIS USING A SINGLE PIECE OF VERBAL DATA Analysis and validation of analogic verbal data is a complex set of operational and transformational generic methods and interrelational procedures. Within each of these generic categories are submethods and procedures which will be operationally defined in the act of applying them. PRESUMPTIVE PRINCIPLES The methodology presumes that (a) talk is cognitively ordered, (b) it is ordered according to a set of rules of construction, (c) it is multileveled, and (d) that the order of the talk tends toward a maximum compression of organization.

Social Cognition, Language, and the Non-Conscious Expression of Racial Ideology

Derived from a set of qualitative methodological procedures of analysis and validation of verbal reports, findings from both small group laboratory sessions and naturalistic observation settings are presented illustrating non-conscious expressions of racial ideology. Literal verbal productions are shown to yield “metaphorical” or subliteral references to racial concerns and stereotypes. The findings are discussed in terms of psychological and sociocultural levels of conditioning, prejudicial intent, the perception of “difference,” and the cognitive structure of prejudice.

Unconscious linguistic referents to race: analysis and methodological frameworks

Recent years have seen considerable development in methodological designs for accessing and eliciting unconscious cognitive schemata in response to social stimuli, including race. One design is experimental and involves the priming and automatic activation of schemata. Another design is a specifically developed psycho-linguistic and logico-mathematic method for recognizing, analyzing, and validating unconsciously expressed meaning in verbal narratives, referred to as sub-literal (SubLit). Unconscious references to race found in verbal discourse from both laboratory and everyday settings, including the mass media, are illustrated and analyzed utilizing these two complementary methodological designs. Along with suggested procedures, an initial classification scheme for attributions of racial stereotypes and prejudice are presented. Given the historical and current state of race relations both nationally and globally, the paper has significant social implications.

Cognitive Operations, and Non-Conscious Processing in Dreams and Waking Verbal Reports

From findings based on empirical data and a specifically developed qualitative methodology, it is suggested that numbers presented in dream and waking verbal reports are processed cognitively as constructivistic non-conscious internal representations that are structurally isomorphic to physical external referents. The data suggest that numbers function structurally and imaginally, similar to numbers reported by Freud in dreams, and by others in primitive myths. The analysis of such data is based on a non-interpretive content and context analysis. In presenting a set of cognitive operations which function specifically with numerical structures, it is suggested that affective schemata are involved in the cognitive construction of numerical representations. Implications are discussed in terms of cognitive psychology in general, for the relationship of dream processes to waking cognition, and for similar anomalous data.

Thomas Szasz and Our Right to Drugs: Cracking the Constitution

The work of Thomas Szasz and his position on drug policy and drug addiction is presented through his latest work, Our Right to Drugs: The Case for a Free Market, the main thesis of which is that individuals have a constitutional right to drugs. Szasz links this right with other rights such as the right to control ones body, the right to property, and the right to die. His position is shown to emanate consistently from a single philosophical premise and is outlined by textual citations from his writings. Szaszs intellectual importance is then suggested. Rationality is strengthened by defiance; that is why it is indifferent to consensus and eschews coercions. -Thomas Szasz, M.D. The Untamed Tongue

Transfer and Everyday Reasoning: Personal Development, Cultural Diversity, and Decision Making

Transfer occurs widely in everyday life, although it seldom occurs as the result of formal instruction. It occurs pervasively in everyday reasoning about events and people, and when it occurs, one often fail to recognize it as a transfer. The use of similarity is systemic in everyday reasoning and the mental manipulation of similarity is the foundation of reasoning itself. It is often the simple observations in life that carry profound consequences and one implication is that it provides insight into the bases on which one respond to others in social situations. Another implication is that reasoning on the basis of a single instance is applicable to the logical problem of induction and inference. Personal development is the consequence of knowledge such as knowledge of things; knowledge of knowledge, sometimes called meta-knowledge; knowledge of self; and knowledge of others. There are two basic paths to personal development. The first concerns developing our individual selves through general knowledge and the second path is development through interaction based on knowledge of others. A number of studies on analogical transfer have noted that governmental policymakers often make use of single instances in their experience as analogs on which to base their decisions and policies of current crises.

A Brief History of Transfer and Transfer as History

This chapter presents a brief history of transfer research and discusses the central issues and problems in the literature. Beginning in the 1960s, up through about the mid-1980s, research into transfer of learning steadily declined. According to Richard Clark and Alexander Voogels 1985 review of the educational literature, in the years from 1971–1974, 31 documents were published on transfer; in the years from 1975–1978, the number dropped to 24; and from 1979-1982, there were only 13 published articles. The reasons were the identical elements model on which it was based, and a change in instructional focus, with focus on skills and competencies. Because of a general recognition of the cognitive operations involved in transfer, it has been extended to include the research literature on metaphorical, analogical reasoning, and the study of figurative language, though these areas still primarily focus on the structures and cognitive processes involved in encoding and retrieval of information that operate during learning, and not on the implications for instruction.

Chapter 8 – Cultures and Contexts of Transfer: Social Origins and Support Systems

This chapter outlines the contexts and social situations in which transfer often operates, namely, learning contexts and cultural settings. The encapsulation of learning in a specific cultural situation is the broader paradigm for different transfer contexts. The mechanisms of transfer as well as the transfer spirit are shaped by the social, organizational, and group systems within which they take place. Children are an excellent example of the effects of cultures and contexts of transfer. During their first 5 years children learn within culturally meaningful ongoing contexts in which they receive immediate feedback on the successes or failures of their actions. Their learning is often mediated by their parents and peers, who not only serve as models for imitative learning, but who facilitate learning by providing structures and connections among their experiences. Learning in the workplace is a subset of learning contexts in general. A work context consists of roles, norms, cues, procedural knowledge, goals, reinforcement patterns, modeling behaviors and attitudes, meanings, and specific kinds of information that are part of the activities one engages in, as well as a host of other contextual factors that are an integral cognitive part of our carrying out a relevant task. These variables are constantly learned and applied through the direct observation and verbal communication with others.