Moving beyond the metaphor of transfer of learning

Abstract

This paper argues that much contemporary educational policy makes assumptions about learning that are directly contradicted by the best research and theorising of learning that has occurred over the last decade and more. This worrying mismatch is largely attributable to adherence by policy makers (and other key stakeholders such as employers), to 'common sense' notions of learning transfer. In fact, these 'common sense' notions of transfer have increasingly been discarded even in the learning transfer literature. However, we go further in arguing that transfer is a totally inappropriate metaphor for thinking about most learning, but especially for vocational learning. Accepting that thought about learning inevitably involves metaphors, we consider the merits and otherwise of various other learning metaphors including participation and construction. We conclude that the conceptual flaws of transfer can be avoided by employing alternative metaphors. The value of our recommended alternative is illustrated by its power to illuminate data on learning collected from various research projects.Learning transfer is an extraordinarily narrow and barren account of how knowledgeable persons make their way among multiply interrelated settings.

In-service Initial Teacher Education in the Learning and Skills Sector in England: Integrating Course and Workplace Learning

“…A conceptual framework for LSS trainee learning, drawing on Billett's (2008) concept of relational interdependence and Hager and Hodkinson's (2009) metaphor of 'learning as becoming' has been developed and used to examine the findings of a small scale study of LSS trainee learning and other empirical studies that illuminate trainee learning. It has been argued, conceptually and empirically, that the nature and extent of LSS trainee learning depends on the complex interrelationship between workplace affordances for learning, ITE course affordances for learning, and trainees' beliefs, prior experiences and dispositions which affect how they interpret and engage with those affordances.…”

“…The proposed conceptual model enables consideration of how trainees integrate course and workplace learning. Research and theorising over the last decade indicates that the traditional view of knowledge being 'transferred' from education to practice settings is flawed (Hager and Hodkinson, 2009). The transfer metaphor, which assumes that learning is an individual cognitive process, is irreconcilable with the complex relational web encompassing individual and social learning, proposed to explain LSS trainee learning.…”

“…For example, Lucas (2007) highlights the importance of the workplace as a site where LSS trainees reconstruct, or transform, their subject content knowledge, which has been generated through the course or prior experiences, into pedagogical content knowledge -knowledge of how to teach the subject. As trainees reconstruct skills, knowledge and understanding in one setting this becomes embodied in their dispositions (Hager and Hodkinson, 2009). In turn the way trainees choose to engage with the affordances for learning in other settings is then influenced by these changed dispositions.…”

“…While professional learning continues to be a contested concept there is a growing trend, to explore workplace learning in ways that move beyond the limiting dualist conceptions of learning, as either individual or social. For example, Hager and Hodkinson (2009) combine different conceptual lenses to better understand learning. As Lethinen (2008, p261) points out 'taking into account individual and social level processes simultaneously, is difficult but necessary if we try to develop adequate models to analyse real learning processes in workplaces'.…”

Moving forwards with the aim of going backwards fast: high-performance rowing as a learning environment

“…Recall that Hager and Hodkinson (2009) identify the dynamic coalescence of 'being conditioned' and 'constructing meaning' (see Barker-Ruchti et al, this volume) in framing the idea of learning as becoming. For Archer (2007) this is a reflexive process that involves the bending of the 'object' under consideration (that is, learning) back on the subject (the 'one' doing the considering).…”