Rethinking Transfer: A Simple Proposal with Multiple Implications

9720384). We greatly appreciate their support but emphasize that the views expressed herein are those of the authors and not of the granting agency. We are very grateful to Carl Bereiter, Asghar (Ali) Iran-Nejad, and David Pearson for excellent comments and suggestions. In addition, we thank our colleagues Kay Burgess, Xiadong Lin, and Sean Brophy for graciously allowing us to discuss some of their yet-to-be-published data. We also thank the members of the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt who provided invaluable feedback on our work. 2Rethinking Transfer: A Simple Proposal With Multiple Implications A belief in transfer lies at the heart of our educational system. Most educators want learning activities to have positive effects that extend beyond the exact conditions of initial learning. They are hopeful that students will show evidence of transfer in a variety of situations; for example, from one problem to another within a course; from one course to another; from one school year to the next; and from their years in school to their years in the workplace. Beliefs about transfer often accompany the claim that it is better to “educate ” people broadly than simply “train ” them to perform particular tasks (e.g., Broudy, 1977).