Education Design: Learning Theory

Considerations for Enhancing Transfer

  • Participants come to an activity with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions in the outside world.
  • To develop competence in an area of inquiry, participants must:
    • Have a deep foundation of factual knowledge;
    • Understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework; and
    • Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application
  • A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help participants learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them

Evidence supports use of discussion to foster metacognition in the college classroom9. By observing and engaging in questioning, participants become better at monitoring and questioning their own thinking.

A critical aspect of education in the medical environment (and key in all other learning environments also) is to prepare participants for flexible adaptation to new problems and settings, i.e. cultivate their ability to transfer their knowledge to new problems.This transfer of learning rests on some key principles:

  1.  Initial learning is necessary for transfer
  2.  Knowledge that is overly contextualized can reduce transfer
  3. Transfer is best viewed as an active, dynamic process
  4.  All new learning involves transfer based on previous learning

Critical features of learning that affect participants' ability to transfer what they have learned include:

  • The amount and kind of learning is important in shaping the development of expertise
  • Participants are motivated to spend time solving problems that they find interesting
  • Participants are motivated by opportunities to use knowledge to benefit themselves and others

And here we circle back around to assessment to improve a program, as instructional differences are made more apparent when evaluated from the perspective of how well the learning transfers to new problems and settings. In continuing medical education, this is can be identified through adherence to guidelines and other performance measures that can be evaluated with the use of the EHR3.

Metacognition refers to people’s abilities to predict their performance on various tasks…and to monitor their current levels of mastery and understanding3. Teaching practices congruent with a metacognitive approach to learning focus on sense-making, self-assessment, andd reflection on what worked/needs improving. This increases the degree to which participants transfer their learning to new settings and events.

Such an approach helps participants take control of their learning and supports transfer. Reciprocal teaching is an example of this approach.