Knowledge Transfer in Biology and Translation Across External Representations: Experts' Views and Challenges for Learning

Recent curriculum reform promotes core competencies such as desired ‘content knowledge’ and ‘communication’ for meaningful learning in biology. Understanding in biology is demonstrated when pupils can apply acquired knowledge to new tasks. This process requires the transfer of knowledge and the subordinate process of translation across external representations. This study sought ten experts’ views on the role of transfer and translation processes in biology learning. Qualitative analysis of the responses revealed six expert themes surrounding the potential challenges that learners face, and the required cognitive abilities for transfer and translation processes. Consultation with relevant curriculum documents identified four types of biological knowledge that students are required to develop at the secondary level. The expert themes and the knowledge types exposed were used to determine how pupils might acquire and apply these four types of biological knowledge during learning. Based on the findings, we argue that teaching for understanding in biology necessitates fostering ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ transfer (and translation) processes within learners through the integration of knowledge at different levels of biological organization.