Training, Transfer, and the Development of Complex Behavior

Abstract

Current research concerned with the role of experience in development is directed to assessing the effects of training on child behavior. This approach is discussed as a general strategy for experimental research in the study of developmental phenomena, and for its implications in contrasting models of development in terms of their assumptions relating to the joint roles of experience and maturation in behavior. The similarities of these assumptions to those made in learning theories are also discussed. In addition, experimental methods for the systematic assessment of training-related changes in behavior are presented as procedures for studying phenomena which typically covary with age in the natural environment.

Learning as a generative process1

“…As one example of the implications which follow from such a conceptualization, Larry Goulet and I have previously presented (Goulet & Wittrock, 1971) the figure which is reproduced here as Figure 3. The figure is Goulet's work (Goulet, 1970). This figure indicates several comparisons which would help to untangle previous experience at solving learning set problems from age differences in intellectual development.…”

Free recall in children.

“…In all, the learning-to-learn effects appear to be weak, but perhaps the designs used with children have not permitted learning-to-learn effects to appear (Goulet, 1970). Another problem with the experimental designs presently used to study learning to learn in children is that they have not taken account of production deficiency problems.…”

Adult development of intellectual performance: Description, explanation, and modification.

“…The rationales for manipulative research, of course, are too numerous to be discussed at length in the present chapter. The scarcity of manipulative experiments in behavioral gerontology, however, warrants some comments, especially since a variety of recent papers (e.g., Baer, 1970, in press;Baltes & Goulet, 1971;Baltes & Nesselroade, in press;Biren, 1970;Goulet, 1970;Wohlwill, 1970aWohlwill, , 1970c have addressed themselves to formulating strategies aimed at explicating age functions by systematic intervention research. The major tenet underlying the use of manipulative experimentation is that, once developmental functions have been described, research should concentrate on identifying key antecedents and processes by strategies which explicitly involve alterations and modifications of the developmental functions considered.…”

“…In the area of intellectual ontogeny during old age, there are only a few studies signaling the rise of manipulative experimentation. Thus, most of the guidance will have to come from other developmental specialties (e.g., Gewirtz, 1968;Goulet, 1970;McGaugh & Dawson, 1971;Rohwer, 1970;Starr, 1971;White, 1969). Directly illustrative are two studies, one by Jacobs et al (1969) mentioned earlier and another by Kamin (1957).…”