Chater 9 - When Theory Fails: The Importance of a Learner's Theoretical Knowledge for Transfer

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the importance of theoretical knowledge in transfer of learning. Theoretical knowledge creates the constraints or balancing feedback, and acts as a hedge against a runaway system of thinking. Theoretical knowledge provides simultaneously, with a rule to guide the transfer, and a framework to constrain runaway transfer. It is necessary for creating coherence out of a bunch of novel or otherwise disconnected experiences and is more likely to be transferred to new situations. Not only adults but children carry theories around in their heads, and these theories operate either explicitly or implicitly. Implicitly erroneous theories influence learning and have serious consequences for teaching and transfer. Studies have shown that the erroneous theories about scientific phenomena that students come into the classroom with block their learning of science. Studies consistently demonstrate that naive or beginning physics and biology students hold fundamentally erroneous theories about these subjects that negatively influence their learning and transfer.