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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Background
Transfer of learning is the effect that prior
learning has on later learning.
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It is the fundamental goal of education to make
the skills and information students acquire in
the classroom helpful to them outside the
classroom.
In 1700, the British empiricist philosopher, John
Locke, proposed a theory of transfer called The
Doctrine of Formal Discipline. It was challenged
two centuries later by American psychologist,
Edward L. Thorndike, with his Theory of Identical
Elements. Thorndike founded educational
psychology.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Doctrine of Formal Discipline
Locke maintained that transfer depends on the
amount of effort you put into mastering a task,
not the specific skills or information you
acquire. The mind is like a muscle. You have to
exercise it to make it stronger.
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Here is the theory in Lockes own words, with a
few alterations to update the phrasing
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Thorndike
Transfer of Learning
Doctrine of Formal Discipline
Would you have a man reason well, you must give
him practice ahead of time, exercising his mind
in observing the connection of ideas and
following them in train.
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Nothing does this better than mathematics, which
therefore I think should be taught to all those
who have the time and opportunity, not so much to
make them mathematicians as to make them
reasonable creatures...
...that having got the way of reasoning, which
that study necessarily brings the mind to, they
might be able to transfer it to other parts of
knowledge as they shall have occasion.
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Locke
Transfer of Learning
Theory of Identical Elements
Thorndike maintained that transfer takes place to
the extent that the original task is similar to
the transfer task.
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It depends on how how many elements the two
tasks have in common.
For example, taking a high school course in
geometry may help you later in life if you become
a surveyor or navigator, but it wont help you if
you become a lawyer. You wont strengthen a
general ability to think logically by taking
geometry.
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Locke
Transfer of Learning
Thorndikes Theory of Learning
Thorndikes transfer theory was based on his
general theory of learning that said learning
consists of forming connections between specific
stimuli and specific actions (S-R learning).
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He did pioneering experiments on animal learning
in which he studied how cats learned to escape
from a small box (a problem box) by stepping on
a pedal or pulling on a piece of string. It was
the forerunner of the Skinner box.
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Locke
Transfer of Learning
Thorndikes Theory of Learning
The cats learned gradually apparently through
blind trial-and-error. Responses that opened the
door were repeated responses that didnt open
the door eventually stopped occurring.
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Thorndike formulated the original version of the
Law of Effect Responses that lead to positive
outcomes are stamped in. Responses that lead
to negative outcomes are stamped out.
The result of this process is an S-R bond.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Studying Transfer
There are two kinds of transfer, positive and
negative. In positive transfer, learning on the
original task speeds up learning on the transfer
task. In negative transfer, the effect is the
opposite Learning on the transfer task is
slowed down.
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In a typical experiment, there is an Experimental
Group that gets both tasks, and a Control Group
that gets only the transfer task. The researcher
compares the two groups rates of learning on the
transfer task. Faster learning by the
Experimental Group indicates positive transfer
slower learning indicates negative transfer.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Studying Transfer
Experimental Design
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Phase 1 Phase 2
Experimental Group
Learn Original Task
Learn TransferTask
Learn TransferTask
Control Group
Rest
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Studying Transfer
Suppose the groups took the following numbers of
trials to learn the tasks
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Phase 1 Phase 2
Experimental Group
Learn Original Task
Learn TransferTask
8
15
Learn TransferTask
Control Group
Rest
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negative
The Experimental Group showed __________
transfer.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Studying Transfer
Its negative transfer because the Experimental
Group took longer to learn the transfer task than
the Control Group. The number of trials to learn
the original task is irrelevant. Ignore it, even
though the Experimental Group shows a decrease on
the transfer task. Maybe Task 2 was easier than
Task 1. Just compare Experimental and Control on
Task 2.
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What about the following set of numbers...?
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Studying Transfer
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Phase 1 Phase 2
Experimental Group
Learn Original Task
Learn TransferTask
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8
Learn TransferTask
Control Group
Rest
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positive
The Experimental Group showed __________
transfer.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
Thorndikes theory of transfer talked about the
number of elements two tasks have in common but
did not distinguish between stimulus elements and
response elements. Transfer may depend on which
elements are involved.
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To investigate the role of stimulus and response
elements, researchers have presented
paired-associate lists as the original and
transfer tasks. The tasks can then be made
similar in terms of their stimuli, their
responses, or both.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
The following notation system is used to refer to
the paired-associate lists in Phases 1 and 2.
There are two pairs of letters, like A-B, C-D.
The first letter of a pair represents stimulus
items in the list and the second letter
represents response items. The above notation
means that both stimuli and responses in the two
lists are different.
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Suppose the two lists used the same stimulus
items but different response items. The first
list would be represented as A-B. The second
would be __ C.
A
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
A-B, C-D
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Phase 1 Phase 2
Experimental Group
Learn A-B bok - xiz
Learn C-D foh - taw
Learn C-D foh - taw
Control Group
Rest
Typical Result Positive Transfer
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
A-B, C-D
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Even though the two lists are completely
different, the Experimental Group often
outperforms the Control Group on the transfer
task. Findings like this have led to a
distinction between specific transfer and general
transfer.
Specific transfer depends on similarity between
stimulus or response elements of the information
presented. General transfer does not it occurs
for other reasons.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
A-B, C-D
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It is likely that the Experimental Group benefits
from experience in Phase 1 because they learn how
to memorize paired-associate lists under the
conditions of the experiment. Such general
positive transfer has been called
learning-how-to-learn learning something useful
about a type of task or problem that can be
applied to any instance of it.
Thorndikes theory can handle this because it
says that task elements can be either part of a
procedure or part of the substance of whats
learned. The effect is more limited than Locke
would expect.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
A-B, A-C
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Phase 1 Phase 2
Experimental Group
Learn A-B bok - xiz
Learn A-C bok - taw
Learn A-C bok - taw
Control Group
Rest
Typical Result Negative Transfer
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
A-B, A-C
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This negative transfer goes against Thorndikes
theory. Half the elements (the stimuli) are
identical in the two lists so there should be
some positive transfer. Negative transfer occurs
because you have to extinguish (stop saying) List
1 responses before you can learn the List 2
responses.
Its like learning to drive on the left side of
the road after many years of driving on the right
side. There will be a strong tendency to keep
driving on the right.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
A-B, A-B
(similar stimuli, same responses)
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Phase 1 Phase 2
Experimental Group
Learn A-B bok - xiz
Learn A-B bik - xiz
Learn A-B bik - xiz
Control Group
Rest
Typical Result Positive Transfer
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
A-B, A-B
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This positive transfer is readily explained in
terms of a principle of operant conditioning that
says when you learn a response to a stimulus, you
will tend to make that same response to similar
stimuli. This is the principle of ...
Stimulus Generalization
It helps to explain why learning one romance
language, like French, can help you learn
another, like Italian or Spanish...
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Paired-Associate Learning
A - B
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French bon good
A - B
Italian buono good
Spanish bueno good
Generally, the findings on transfer support
Thorndike more than Locke. Transfer depends on
details of the information being learned or the
type of task involved.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Learning Sets
A learning set is a tendency to approach a
problem in a certain way as a result of previous
experience with similar problems. The term was
introduced by Harry Harlow to characterize the
remarkable improvements he observed in monkeys
performance on discrimination problems as a
result of their being given hundreds of problems
of the same type.
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Review of Terms
Two other terms were discussed that basically
mean the same thing as learning set. They are...?
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Learning Set ?
Learning-How-to-Learn
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General Positive Transfer
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Learning Sets
In Harlows experiments, monkeys were presented
with two objects that differed in multiple ways,
like shape, color, and size for example, a red
cylinder and a blue pyramid
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If the monkey pushed aside one of the objects
(here, the red cylinder), he found food. If he
chose the pyramid, he got no food. Left-right
positions were reversed randomly from trial to
trial.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Learning Sets
After the monkey consistently made correct
choices, Harlow switched to a new set of objects,
like a green cube and a silver sphere
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The monkey got trial after trial until he always
made correct choices. Then Harlow switched to a
new pair of objects and the animal had learn a
new solution. Altogether, there were 344
problems, each with a different set of objects.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Learning Sets
The monkeys became experts at solving this type
of problem. The first few problems took a lot of
trials to solveblind trial-and-error like
Thorndikes cats in the problem box.
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After 300 problems (not trials on the same
problem), they solved each problem within 2
trials, the absolute minimum, using a win-stay,
lose-shift strategy.
If the first object they chose was correct, the
chose it on every trial. If it was wrong, they
shifted to the other object on Trial 2, and then
stuck with it.
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Thorndike
Locke
Transfer of Learning
Learning Sets
100 75 50
Problems 289 - 344
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Problems 33 - 132
Percent Correct Responses
Problems 1 - 8
1 2
6 Trials
These general improvements in problem-solving
support Locke, but theyre specific to the type
of problem the animals practiced, which supports
Thorndike.