Search

Groupwork is an increasingly popular method of learning in higher education and the ability to work effectively with others is important for academic success and employability. This systematic review investigated the use of outdoor adventure education (OAE) in facilitating the development of transferable groupwork skills in higher education. The studies reviewed provided some support in favour of OAE benefitting students' perceived groupwork skills, the functioning of existing student work groups, attitudes and confidence towards groupwork, and the cooperative and social environment within higher education. However, this evidence was limited by methodological weaknesses such as the use of non-validated questionnaires and a variety of problems with study design and analytical methods. Research was also lacking into the long-term impact of OAE on students' groupwork behaviour and their experience of higher education and subsequent employability. Recommendations are made to advance this area of research, including the use of training evaluation models for more rigorous assessments of skill development and transfer., Author(s): Sam J. Cooley[sup.1] , Victoria E. Burns[sup.1] , Jennifer Cumming[sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, [...]

The basis for this longitudinal study was to find the predictors of transferable skills acquisition and portability among university sophomore students. The method employed was the path analysis using as variables: (1) the theoretical framework of transferable skills representations (Evers and Rush in Manag Learn 27(4):275-300, 1996 (See CR32); Evers et al. in The bases of competence: Skills for lifelong learning andemployability. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1998 (See CR10)) in the freshman and sophomore years (2) the developmental dimensions of Career adaptability and Vocational development (Savickas in Contemporary models in vocational psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, 2001 (See CR20), in Career choice and development. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2002 (See CR21), in Career development and counseling: putting theory and research to work. Wiley, Hoboken, 2005 (See CR23), in Life-design International Research Group: Career Adaptability Project Meeting, 2009 (See CR24)), and, (3) the grades for Project I and Project II (curricular units specially developed for the acquisition of groups of transferable skills in the first and second years of Economics and Management program at the Catholic University of Porto [herein referred to as Catholic University of Porto]. The criteria used were the grades from two second-year curricular units (Business Law and Statistics). The objective was to observe the impact of other dimensions on actual skills acquisition, considering the influence of the former on the grades of Business Law and Statistics as an indicator of portability of the transferable skills acquisition. All participants were male and female students at the Catholic University of Porto, Faculty of Economics and Management, between 18 and 25 years of age (M = 18.53, SD = 1.37) at the first assessment (N = 193). Results suggest that Project I grades are the best predictor of both Business Law and Statistics grades. However, results also reveal that student's representations of their transferable skills measured at the first and the second year are mediated by Career adaptability measured at the second year. Results are discussed based on the aforementioned frameworks., Author(s): Magda Rocha[sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Research Center in Psychology for Development (CIPD), Psychology and Education Department, University Portucalense Infante D. Henrique (UPT), Rua Dr. Antonio Bernardino de Almeida, nr. [...]

One hundred seven management training evaluations were meta-analyzed to compare effect sizes for the transfer of managerial training derived from different rating sources (self, superior, peer, and subordinate) and broken down by both study- and training-related variables. For studies as a whole, and interpersonal management skills training studies in particular, transfer effects based on trainees' self-ratings, and to a lesser extent ratings from their superiors, were largest and most varied across studies. In contrast, transfer effects based on peer ratings, and particularly subordinate ratings, were substantially smaller and more homogeneous. This pattern was consistent across different sources of studies, features of evaluation design, and within a subset of 14 studies that each included all 4 rating sources. Across most rating sources, transfer of training was greatest for studies conducted in nonmilitary settings, when raters were likely to have known whether the manager being rated had attended training, when criteria were targeted to training content, when training content was derived from an analysis of tasks and skill requirements, and when training included opportunities for practice. Keywords: training transfer, management training, rating sources

Participants learned semantic associates and were tested in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. A multiple-trial learning procedure with warning, feedback, and monetary incentive was employed to reduce false memory. Results showed that there was a progressive reduction of false memory over the trials as well as a generalization of learning to new lists of words in avoiding the critical nonpresented words attributable to explicit warning, feedback, and incentive, respectively. Both the feedback and the monetary incentive had an effect beyond what an explicit warning could obtain. In addition, participants were found to achieve false-memory reduction by enhancing the activation of the critical words and the monitoring process, rather than by strengthening the verbatim processing of the list words. It was concluded that false memory may not be as impervious to correction as was believed insofar as an effective training method is applied.

Four experiments examined transfer of noncorresponding spatial stimulus-response associations to an auditory Simon task for which stimulus location was irrelevant. Experiment 1 established that, for a horizontal auditory Simon task, transfer of spatial associations occurs after 300 trials of practice with an incompatible mapping of auditory stimuli to keypress responses. Experiments 2-4 examined transfer effects within the auditory modality when the stimuli and responses were varied along vertical and horizontal dimensions. Transfer occurred when the stimuli and responses were arrayed along the same dimension in practice and transfer but not when they were arrayed along orthogonal dimensions. These findings indicate that prior task-defined associations have less influence on the auditory Simon effect than on the visual Simon effect, possibly because of the stronger tendency for an auditory stimulus to activate its corresponding response. Keywords: auditory modality, orthogonal dimensions, Simon effect, stimulus-response compatibility, transfer of learning DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.33.1.245

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00888.x Byline: Brian Bergstrom (1), Bianca Moehlmann (1), Pascal Boyer (1) Abstract: Children's learning-in the domains of science and religion specifically, but in many other cultural domains as well-relies extensively on testimony and other forms of culturally transmitted information. The cognitive processes that enable such learning must also administrate the evaluation, qualification, and storage of that information, while guarding against the dangers of false or misleading input. Currently, the development of these appraisal processes is not clearly understood. Recent work, reviewed here, has begun to address three important dimensions of the problem: how children and adults evaluate truth in communication, how they gauge the inferential potential of information, and how they encode and evaluate its source. Author Affiliation: (1)Washington University Article note: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Pascal Boyer, Department of Psychology, Washington University, Campus Box 1125, St. Louis, MO 63130. Electronic mail may be sent to pboyer@artsci.wustl.edu.

N. R. Brown and R. S. Siegler (1996) found that training participants on a subset of country populations improved estimations for novel transfer country populations, an effect called seeding that remained intact over time. They attributed this effect to the abstraction by participants of a general metric framework for estimating populations not dependent on specific country anchors. In a series of 3 follow-up experiments, the authors found that training on seed populations produces both general metric information and durable specific country information. Moreover, minimal amounts of general (mean or range of populations) or specific (1 or 3 countries) information made available for inspection while estimating produced a significant seeding effect. Retention over long intervals was facilitated by both presenting 3 seed countries as opposed to 1 and providing names for the seed countries.

If different effector systems share a common task-specific coordination dynamics, transfer and generalization of sensorimotor learning are predicted. Subjects learned a visually specified phase relationship with either the arms or the legs. Coordination tendencies in both effector systems were evaluated before and after practice to detect attractive states of the coordination dynamics. Results indicated that learning a novel relative phase with a single effector system spontaneously transferred to the other, untrained effector system. Transfer was revealed not only as improvements in performance but also as modifications of each system's initial (prelearning) coordinative landscape. What is learned, appears to be a high-level but neurally instantiated dynamic representation of skilled behavior that proves to be largely effector independent, at least across anatomically symmetric limbs.

Despite a century's worth of research, arguments surrounding the question of whether far transfer occurs have made little progress toward resolution. The authors argue the reason for this confusion is a failure to specify various dimensions along which transfer can occur, resulting in comparisons of 'apples and oranges.' They provide a framework that describes 9 relevant dimensions and show that the literature can productively be classified along these dimensions, with each study situated at the intersection of various dimensions. Estimation of a single effect size for far transfer is misguided in view of this complexity. The past 100 years of research shows that evidence for transfer under some conditions is substantial, but critical conditions for many key questions are untested.

Two experiments investigated transfer of stimulus functions via emergent relations of compound stimuli. In Experiment 1, 4 college students were taught nine conditional relations of compound stimuli and unitary stimuli (A1B1-C1, A1B2-C3, A1B3-C2, A2B1-C3, A2B2-C2, A2B3-C1, A3B1-C2, A3B2-C1, and A3B3-C3), then tested for 18 untrained stimulus relations derived from the trained relations (e.g., A1C1-B1; B1C1-A1). Participants were then taught to sequence the A stimuli (A1→A2→A3), and tested for transfer of this sequencing response to BC compounds. Two participants demonstrated transfer of the sequencing response. Two participants demonstrated transfer of the sequencing response after additional experimental phases. In Experiment 2, 5 college students were taught nine AB-C relations and then tested for 18 AC-B and BC-A relations as in Experiment 1. A skin conductance response was conditioned to A1 by pairing this stimulus with mild electric shock. Participants were then tested for transfe r of this skin conductance response to B1C1 and B3C2. Three participants showed the transfer of conditioning. One participant did not demonstrate conditioning of the skin conductance response. One participant showed transfer of the skin conductance response after a supplemental conditioning phase. Initial failures to show transfer for some participants suggest that transfer of function sometimes depends upon a history of differential responding to compound stimuli. These results suggest that emergent relations involving compound stimuli and stimulus equivalence are related phenomena., Numerous recent studies of stimulus equivalence have included complex (multielement) sample stimuli in the match-to-sample training and testing procedures used to investigate stimulus equivalence. In some experiments, the multielement samples [...]

This paper explores learning processes from subunits flowing to other subunits within the organization. These are: collecting new knowledge which intensifies vertical flows, codifying knowledge which facilitates both horizontal and vertical flows, and combining old knowledge which affects horizontal flows.

Experimental results suggest that implicit invariance learning is hyperspecific, as is true of other forms of implicit learning and memory. Cross-format transfer occurred only under conditions in which a specific response strategy was applicable.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what was learned and transferred of a criterion task using a transfer task and a self-paced procedure. Based on the results of two previous studies, five durations of practice were specifically selected to examine what can be transferred to a new task after different amounts of practice (40, 75, 100, 125, and 150 acquisition trials) on a criterion task. The criterion task required subjects to practice finding an 8-in. line with no fixed starting and ending points from left to right. The transfer task was different from the criterion task in two dimensions, distance (10-in. line) and direction (right to left). 50 volunteers were randomly assigned into 5 groups. Appropriate 5 x 2 (groups by blocks of practice) analyses of variance and a priori contrasts were conducted for all dependent variables (absolute error, variable error, movement time, KR-delay, post-KR interval, intertrial interval, interstimulus interval, and KR-delay by post-KR interval ratio) to examine the effects of terminal acquisition of the criterion task on the initial performance of the transfer task. Analysis indicated that, during practice, participants developed a functional interaction between performance characteristics and chronological profile of KR-delivery of the criterion task that was transferable to the transfer task. Also, practice beyond a certain point was detrimental to the ability to transfer what was learned.

How the difficulty of initial training influences the acquisition and transfer of strategic processing skills and memory for processed stimuli was examined in 3 experiments. Participants were asked to discriminate between similar or dissimilar random polygon stimuli. Participants were asked to discriminate between novel transfer polygons; this was followed by a recognition memory task. Results suggest that the difficulty of initial training influences strategic skill acquisition. Strategies acquired during training are applied at transfer regardless of their effectiveness for processing transfer stimuli. This is true even when participants are given feedback indicating that their processing strategy is ineffective. It is argued that skill acquisition is influenced by the acquisition of both stimulus-specific knowledge and strategic skills, and that the strategic skills acquired serve to optimize processing.

Following simultaneous discrimination training with pigeons, in which responding to the S + was reinforced on half of the trials and responding to the S- was never reinforced, we examined the effect on the S- of presenting the S + by itself and the effect on the S + of presenting the S- by itself (relative to an S- or an S+ for which there had been no single-stimulus presentations). For Group A+, responding to the S+ presented by itself was always reinforced, whereas for Group A-, such responding was extinguished. For Group B+, responding to the S- presented by itself was always reinforced, whereas for Group B-, responding was extinguished. Although both Group A+ and Group A- tended to avoid their associated S- (relative to a control S-), Group A+ avoided its associated S- less than did Group A-. In contrast, although for Group B+, presentation of the S- alone increased the pigeons' preference for its associated S+ (relative to a control S+), for Group B-, presentation of the S- alone had little effect on its preference for its associated S+. These results suggest that presentation of one stimulus from a simultaneous discrimination has two independent and sometimes opposite effects on the other discriminative stimulus. First, it reduces the strength of within-event conditioning between the S+ and the S-, and second, if the value of the singly presented stimulus has increased, some of its newly acquired value will transfer retroactively to the stimulus with which it was originally paired.

One-trial learning, though experienced by many has received minimal attention in motor learning research. As previous study in our laboratory provided some support, the present study was designed to follow-up by examining whether there is no expected negative transfer or response competition. 24 subjects were randomly assigned to a Response-Replacement or Stimulus-Replacement group in an ABAB learning study. Prior to testing subjects learned a list of eight S-R pairs to a criterion of two consecutive error-free trials. The stimuli were eight 3-letter nonsense syllables while responses were specific hand signs taken from the Gallaudet Survival Guide to Signing. Once the list had been learned, subjects transferred to a condition in which either three responses or three stimuli were replaced. Subjects were to learn this new list to a criterion of one error-free trial. Once they learned, subjects performed three additional test trials on the new list, without intervening acquisition trials, to assess negative transfer from the old list to the new list. The response-replaced group required significantly more acquisition trials than did the stimulus-replaced group. No significant difference in errors postcriterion between the groups was found. The findings were consistent with Guthrie's (1952) expectations, in that once the new response had been learned, there was no retroactive interference from the initial list.

A model of learning transfer that focused on the active role of the learner was developed and tested within a complex decision-making task. The study examined how individual differences, learning strategies, and training outcomes influenced transfer of learning to a more complex task. A sample of 93 undergraduate students participated in a 2-day radar operations study. Hierarchical regression analysis results indicated that mastery orientation was positively related to metacognitive activity of the learner. Metacognitive activity was significantly related to knowledge acquisition, skilled performance at the end of training, and self-efficacy. All 3 of these training outcomes were related to performance on the transfer task. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.

In 2 experiments, pigeons were trained on, and then transferred to, delayed simple discriminations in which the initial stimuli signalled reinforcement versus extinction following a retention interval. Experiment 1 showed that discriminative responding on the retention test transferred to novel test stimuli that had appeared in another delayed simple discrimination but not to stimuli having the same reinforcement history off-baseline. By contrast, Experiment 2 showed that performances transferred to novel initial stimuli whether they had been trained on-baseline or off-baseline. These results suggest that the test stimuli in delayed simple discriminations acquire control over responding only in the memory task itself. On the other hand, control by the initial stimuli, if coded as outcome expectancies, does not require such task-specific training.

Social service organizations devote a large number of resources to training staff to work more effectively with clients and communities. However; the literature on the transfer of training indicates that much of this may be wasted The authors review the literature on the transfer of training and report the results of a small pilot study, in an effort to determine how organizations can use training more effectively. This review focuses on three main areas presented in the literature: individual attributes related to motivation to transfer training to the jobs, training curriculum and the work environment. The authors discuss the implications of the literature and the study for the role of social work supervisors and administrators.

Although knowledge transfer has been found to be an important learning mechanism in several consumer behavior domains, our understanding of the nature and scope of the transfer process is still in its infancy. In this article, we develop a conceptual model to explain how previously acquired knowledge is transferred in the process of consumer learning. Augmenting analogical learning theory with research on expertise effects and conceptual development, our model details the underlying stages in the process of knowledge transfer and identifies key factors influencing the nature and outcome of each stage. Applying our model to several consumer behavior contexts, we demonstrate its utility both as a tool for enhancing our understanding of knowledge transfer and as a productive guide to future research on consumer learning. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Two transfer-of-control experiments assessed pigeons' sensitivity to response-outcome associations in differential-outcome discriminations. In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained on one-to-many matching-to-sample with food and no-food outcomes that were differential or nondifferential with respect to correct choice. The samples were then replaced by novel stimuli that had differential or nondifferential associations with those same outcomes. Transfer of matching occurred only when the novel samples and their respective choice responses had identical differential-outcome associations. Experiment 2 showed that the outcomes themselves were effective samples if the choices they cued yielded those outcomes in training. These data provide further evidence that the relation between comparison choice and consequent outcomes influences pigeons' matching performances.

Two experiments were performed to investigate the effects of frequency of feedback on immediate- and delayed-transfer tasks in concept identification. In the first experiment, subjects were required to learn new concepts from the same category for the transfer tasks, whereas in the second experiment the transfer tasks involved concepts from a different category. Among the major findings was that although lowering the percentage of feedback trials slows concept attainment, it facilitated transfer on all transfer tasks. In general, the fewer the number of feedback trials subjects received, the greater the amount of transfer. The results are consistent with other studies that suggest that conditions that make it more difficult for subjects to initially learn a task may have positive benefits for transfer., Of current interest among learning theorists and cognitive psychologists are the effects of various practice conditions on transfer of learning, sometimes referred to by its component parts: retention, facilitation, or [...]

The transfer of training of a structural fault finding strategy is possible in hypothetical chemical plants with various structural features. The identification of consistent fault set (CFS) is accurate at three transfer levels; familiar plants, novel plants with familiar structural features and novel plants with novel structural features. Training decreases the number of omission and commission errors. The initial stages of fault-finding improve with training. The accuracy of the CFS is affected by the structural features of the plant.

A study investigated the flow of information among firms in a knowledge-intensive sector. Data used for this research were provided by a sample of 134 employees in semiconductor and semiconductor equipment companies, 96 of which were employed by US firms and 27 by Japanese firms. Findings revealed that both public and private mechanisms are employed for interfirm knowledge sharing despite a highly competitive environment. Nevertheless, public mechanisms are favored in Japanese companies while private channels are preferred in the US. Most of the mechanisms were found to impose limited controls on the use of the shared knowledge. The advantages of sharing were found to be the improvement of strategic plans, inclusion in professional networks and coordination of industry standards.

This investigation examined the contextual interference effect when manipulating over-all force in a golf-putting task. Undergraduate women (N= 30) were randomly assigned to a Random, Blocked-Random, or Blocked practice condition and practiced golf putting from distances of 2.43 m, 3.95 m, and 5.47 m during acquisition. Subjects in the Random condition practiced trials in a quasirandom sequence and those in the Blocked-Random condition practiced trials initially in a blocked sequence with the remainder of the trials practiced in a quasirandom sequence. In the Blocked condition subjects practiced trials in a blocked sequence. A 24-hr. transfer test consisted of 30 trials with 10 trials each from 1.67 m, 3.19 m, and 6.23 m. Transfer scores supported the Magill and Hall (1990) hypothesis that, when task variations involve learning parameters of a generalized motor program, the benefit of random practice over blocked practice would not be found.

The effect of learning a throwing skill with the body in one position on performing the skill in a different position was investigated. 40 normal women, aged 20 to 34 years, were randomly assigned to experimental or control groups. Subjects threw darts from two positions, sitting on a Balans chair or reclined on a slanted table. Practice and transfer sessions each included 4 sets of 5 throws. Performance was significantly poorer after switching positions than when remaining in the same position. Performance after practice in an alternate position was significantly worse than performance after no practice. These findings suggest that practicing a skill in one position may not improve learners' ability to perform that skill in a different position.

Two parallel tasks involving rule learning were used to assess implicit and explicit learning. The complex task (occurring in the complex rule-line condition) involves predominantly implicit learning, and the simple task (occurring in the simple rule-number condition) requires primarily explicit learning. Implicit learning clearly showed negative transfer from previous implicit learning experience, whereas explicit learning showed strong positive transfer. Subjects' explicit knowledge declined and implicit knowledge remained at the same level when retested one week later. The results are discussed in terms of principles guiding the learning and transfer of explicit and implicit knowledge. This is consistent with the assertion that implicit and explicit learning involve two functionally different learning systems., Recently, there has been an increasing amount of research examining the role of consciousness in human learning processes. These studies capture one of the most important aspects of human mental [...]

The issues of skill specificity and transfer of training were examined from an aptitude-treatment interaction approach. The current investigations extended A.M. Sullivan's (1964) approach by using a procedural transfer task and training conditions that differed in amount of training task practice and the degree of training task similarity to the transfer task. Two experiments were conducted with 232 college students. Experiment 1 examined the effects of a length-of-training manipulation on reasoning ability and transfer task performance relationships, and on the amount of transfer. Experiment 2 evaluated the effects of 2 training tasks that differed in terms of similarity to the transfer task on ability-performance relationships and the amount of transfer. Results suggest that Sullivan's approach partially generalizes to the acquisition of procedural knowledge.

Theories of skill acquisition have made radically different predictions about the role of general problem-solving methods in acquiring rules that promote effective transfer to new problems. Under one view, methods that focus on reaching specific goals, such as means-ends analysis, are assumed to provide the basis for efficient knowledge compilation (Anderson, 1987), whereas under an alternative view such methods are believed to disrupt rule induction (Sweller, 1988). We suggest that the role of general methods in learning varies with both the specificity of the problem solver's goal and the systematicity of the strategies used for testing hypotheses about rules. In the absence of a specific goal people are more likely to use a rule-induction learning strategy, whereas provision of a specific goal fosters use of difference reduction, which tends to be a non-rule-induction strategy. We performed two experiments to investigate the impact of goal specificity and systematicity of rule-induction strategies in learning and transfer within a complex dynamic system. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that during free exploration of a problem space, greater learning occurred if participants adopted more systematic strategies for rule induction, and that participants come to favor such strategies. Experiment 2 revealed that participants who were provided with a specific goal performed well on the initial problem but were impaired on a transfer test using a similar problem with a different goal. Instruction on a systematic rule-induction strategy facilitated solution for both the initial and transfer problems, but participants' use of this strategy declined if they had a specific goal. Our results support Sweller's (1988) proposal that general problem-solving methods applied to a specific goal foster acquisition of knowledge about an isolated solution path but do not provide an effective way of learning the overall structure of a problem space. We interpret these results in terms of dual-space theories of search through problem space.

This study used a forehand hitting task to explore the effect of racket variability on 'out of range' transfer. 48 11-yr.-old girls were randomly assigned to four treatment groups of Random Variability, Blocked Variability, Specific, and Control. The experimental groups had 32 trials for 4 successive days after which all groups were tested on 4 transfer conditions. Retention tests were given after 1, 4, and 8 days and the data were examined for treatment, range, and occasion effects. Analysis showed the superiority of practice over no practice, variable over specific practice, and random over blocked variability for transfer with two 'out of range' dimensions. Accuracy decayed between the transfer tests. These results are consistent with schema theory, and it is recommended that physical education teachers should focus variable practice on task dimensions that are new to their classes.

Response related factors contribute little to the within-session patterns of responding in rats and pigeons. Two transfer tests clarify the theoretical variables that underlie learned conditional responses when the instrumental response varies during the session. Results show the occurrence of complete transfer in both rats and pigeons. Although the response rates vary across baseline and switch conditions, within-sessions rate of responding are relatively similar across transfer tasks. The role of response related factors, such as muscular warm up and fatigue, remains inconclusive.

A study was conducted to investigate the acquisition, depreciation and transfer of knowledge gathered through learning by doing in service organizations. More particularly, the study examined productivity gains in 36 pizza stores franchised from the same corporation and owned by 10 different franchisees in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The collection of data was done for one and a half years. Results showed that the unit cost of production substantially drops as the franchises gain experience in production. Knowledge through learning by doing swiftly depreciated in these organizations. Transfer of knowledge was seen across stores owned by the same franchisee but not across stores owned by different franchisees.

An abstract principle provided as source information alone often fails to enhance analogical transfer. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the circumstances under which an abstract statement promotes analogical problem solving in children. External instantiation (providing concrete examples, with similar or dissimilar surface features along with an abstract statement) and internal instantiation (encouraging learners to generate concrete examples of the abstract statement) were equally effective in facilitating transfer. Adding explicit causal relations in the source statements did not significantly enhance transfer. These results suggest that abstract information by itself is less accessible because it lacks superficial features similar to the target problem and lacks example-specific contextual information. Educational implications of the effects of external and internal instantiations are discussed.

A training transfer theory inspired by J. R. Anderson's ACT theory of skill acquisition is studied. It tested the ACT's prediction of transfer and the use-specificity principle in an experiment involving the acquisition of computer programming skills. The transfer prediction was based on task analysis and LISP instructions were evaluated. There was a discrepancy between empirical results and simulation predictions which indicate that skill acquisition theory overlooks important sources of transfer.

The influence of the work environment on the transfer of newly trained supervisory skills was examined. Participants were 505 supermarket managers from 52 stores. The work environment was operationalized in terms of transfer of training climate and continuous-learning culture. Climate and culture were hypothesized to have both direct and moderating effects on posttraining behaviors. Accounting for pretraining behaviors and knowledge gained in training, the results from a series of LISREL analyses showed that both climate and culture were directly related to posttraining behaviors. In particular, the social support system appeared to play a central role in the transfer of training. Moderating effects were not found. Implications for enhancing the transfer of training are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Individuals with dyslexia have difficulty generalizing from word identification training. This study compared 2 forms of word identification training to promote transfer of learning by children with dyslexia. Sixty-two children were randomly assigned to one of the training programs or to a study skills control program. One program trained phonological analysis and blending skills and provided direct instruction of letter-sound correspondences: the other trained the acquisition, use, and monitoring of 4 metacognitive decoding strategies. Results provided clear evidence of transfer of learning after treatment of the core reading deficits of these children. Both training approaches were associated with large positive effects, transfer on several measures, and generalized achievement gains. The phonological program resulted in greater generalized gains in the phonological domain and the strategy program in broader-based transfer for real words.

In a previous study, Smeets and Striefel (1994) demonstrated that arbitrary form-color relations may be acquired through nonreinforced exposure to identity matching tasks with color-form complex stimuli. After being trained on a color matching (C-C) task, preschool children received test trials involving chained presentations of two tasks. In the first task, colored forms (CF) served as samples and colors as comparisons (CF-C). In the second task, the forms served as samples and the colored forms as comparisons (F-CF). Subsequent probes revealed that all children conditionally related the forms to the colors (F-C) and vice versa (C-F). The present study examined whether these findings resulted from (a) the requirement to respond discriminatively to both CF elements, (b) the CF stimuli serving as samples and as comparisons, or (c) the chained CF-C and F-CF tasks producing strings of perceptually related stimuli. The results are in support of the first explanation. Implications for drawing inferences of symmetry are discussed., Research on stimulus equivalence and stimulus class formation has shown that after being trained on multiple conditional discriminations, verbally capable humans as young as 2 years of age typically match [...]

An experimental study was conducted to test the transfer of skills from a complex computer game to the flight performance of cadets in the Israeli Air Force flight school. The context relevance of the game to flight was argued on the basis of a skill-oriented task analysis, using the framework provided by contemporary models of the human processing system. The influence of two embedded training strategies was compared, one focusing on the specific skills involved in performing the game, the other designed to improve the general ability of trainees to cope with the high processing and response demands of the flight task and teach better strategies of attention control. Efficient control and management of attention under high task load are argued to be skills that can improve with proper training and generalize to new situations. Flight performance scores of two groups of cadets who received 10 h of training in the computer game were compared with those of a matched group without game experience. Both game groups performed significantly better than the no-game group in the subsequent test flights. The results are discussed with reference to the theoretical framework within which the context relevance of the game was supported. Also considered are the effects of the different training schedules and the significance of the data to the study of attention control. The game has now been incorporated into the regular training program of the Air Force.

Two experiments with pigeons examined retention and mediated transfer in many-to-one matching with hue, response and food samples. Transfer tests with hue samples provided the strongest evidence for common coding, whereas alternative coding may have occurred during interim training for response and food samples. In retention tests, greater accuracy was associated with presentation of different samples rather than with repeated presentations of the same sample. In addition, asymmetrical results were obtained in each dimension, with shallower retention gradients for no-food, green and one response than for food, red and twenty response.

Ss were trained on letter pairs or letter strings in an artificial grammar learning paradigm to determine the extent to which implicit learning is driven by simple associative knowledge. Learning on strings resulted in sensitivity to violations of grammaticality and in transfer to a changed letter set. Learning on letter pairs resulted in less sensitivity and no transfer. Discrepancies in performance were later reduced, but not eliminated, by equating the task demands of the conditions during learning. A direct test of associative knowledge showed that training on letter pairs resulted in knowledge of legal bigrams, but this knowledge was only weakly related to violation sensitivity. The experiments demonstrate that knowledge of isolated associations is sufficient to support some learning, but this knowledge cannot explain the more abstract knowledge that results from learning on complete exemplars.

Three experiments investigate the relationship between memory and problem solving in the domain of geometry theorem proving. In Experiment 1, Ss memories for an original problem-solving episode were interfered with retroactively by solving a 2nd problem that had the same diagram, but no memory effects were observed that depended on the second problem's logical similarity to the original. Results suggest that the diagram is the basis for geometry problem-solving memories. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated problem-solving memories in use by examining Ss transfer to a 3rd (test) problem. As with the memory results, transfer was reduced when the 1st two problems had the same diagram relative to when they had 2 different diagrams. Transfer was reduced most in the condition with the greatest proportion of memory-interfering steps. Results suggest that the structure and quality of problem-solving memories affect problem-solving transfer.