Learning and transfer in everyday cognition

Abstract

This theoretical article deals with the interrelations and sociocultural origins of everyday cognition, formal reasoning, and transfer in cognitive development. Sociocultural origins are analyzed in terms of modes of informal education and formal schooling. After reviewing studies carried out in a wide variety of cultures, we propose the development of a model that integrates structural accounts of individual development with cultural and situation-bound functionalism. The notion of representation provides a key theoretical link between sociocultural context and individual cognitive constructions. Representation of cultural instruments and cultural goals is presented as the theoretical link between individual cognition and sociocultural context, both in everyday cognition and formal reasoning. Abstract schema representations are seen as crucial to generalized transfer. The conditions that foster abstract schemas include (a) the use of a tool or procedure in a variety of problem-solving contexts, (b) reflection on the structural similarity of problems and their solutions from diverse domains, and (c) exploration of problems and their solutions under conditions of low goal specificity. When these conditions are not present, transfer is less likely to occur. This is the case for both school-based learning and everyday cognition.