Mumbai University, B.ed sem 2, CC3

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Oriental Education Society
ORIENTAL COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, SANPADA
F.Y. B.Ed. (2020-2022)
Course Name: Core Course 3
Subject Name: Learning and Teaching
Assignment Topic: Transfer of Learning
Submitted for the fulfilment of Two Year
Bachelors’ degree of Education
For the year
2021
(SEM-II)
Submitted to: Ms. Renu Chaudhury Submitted by: Santoshini Sahu
Roll No. 47
Date: 28th
July 2021

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TRANSFER OF LEARNING
The process of learning begins from the birth of the child and continues till
his death. When the child is born, his mind is just like a clean slate. As soon as he
comes in contact with his environment, he starts reacting and in this process of
interaction of the individual and his environment, the foundation of learning are
laid down.
LEARNING
Temporary change in behaviour is not
learning. • Not only the modification of
behaviour by acquiring good things as per
the social norms is learning but even
behaviour modification by acquiring bad
things comes under ‘learning’. In other
words, learning leads to change in
behaviour but this does not necessarily
mean that these changes always bring
about improvement or positive
development. Learning is
an interaction wherein when any situation
acts upon the learner, he reacts and modifies his behaviour. E.g. A child touches the
flame of a candle, and immediately withdraws his hand. He has learnt how it feels
to get scalded.

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According to Smith (1962), ‘learning is the acquisition of new behaviour or the
strengthening or weakening of old behaviour as the result of experience’.
Melvin H. Marx defines learning in the following words: “Learning is a
relatively enduring change in behaviour which is a function of prior behaviour (usually
called practice).” Thus four attributes of learning as a process.
1. Learning is a permanent change in behaviour.
2. Learning is not directly observable.
3. Learning that is result in same change of in behaviour.
4. Learning depends upon practice and experience.
TRANSFER OF LEARNING
One of the important characteristics of learning is that the acquisition of
skills, habits, knowledge and attitudes, influences the acquisition of new learning
due to some kind of carry-over effect. The carrying over of feelings, habits, skills,
and knowledge from one learning area to another is called transfer of learning.
According to the older view, transfer of learning implies that training in one
faculty of the mind may help in the functioning of older faculties as well various
faculties of mind - memory, reasoning, judgment, observation etc. - are directed or
trained through various academic subjects. Languages and mathematics give
training to the mind which helps in learning other subjects. A person who possesses
a good knack for language, can learning and retain any fact easily.
DEFINITION OF TRANSFER OF LEARNING
According to Crow and Crow, “The carryover of habit, thinking, feeling, working
of knowledge or of skills from one learning area to another usually it referred as transfer of
training.”
According to Sorenson, “Transfer refers to the transfer of knowledge training and
habits acquired in one situation to another situation.”
According to Peterson, “Transfer is generalization, for it is extension of idea to a
new field.”
Transfer of learning is the dependency of human conduct, learning, or
performance on prior experience. The notion was originally introduced as transfer
of practice by Edward Thorndike and Robert S. Woodworth. They explored how
individuals would transfer learning in one context to another, similar context- or

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how “improvement in one mental function” could influence a related one. Their
theory implied that transfer of learning depends on how similar the learning task
and transfer task are, or where “identical elements are concerned in the influencing
and influenced function”, now known as the identical element theory.
Today, transfer of learning is usually described as the process and the effective
extent to which past experience affect learning and performance in a new situation.
However, there remains controversy as to how transfer of learning should be
conceptualized and explained, what its prevalence is, what its prevalence is, what its
relation is to learning in general, and whether it exists at all.
Transfer of learning stands for the carryover from one act of learning to
another or transfer of learning means person’s learning in one situation influences
his learning and performance in other situation.
TYPES OF TRANSFER OF TRAINING
1. Positive Transfer: - When learning of one activity facilitates the learning of
another activity. E.g. Playing badminton will help to pick up tennis faster.
2. Negative Transfer: - When previously learnt activity interferes with the learning
of another activity. E.g. Substances contract while changing state from liquid to
solid due to decrease in temperature but ice expands enormously.
3. Zero Transfer: - When learning of one activity neither facilitates nor transfers
with learning of a new tasks. E.g. Training in Music will not affect training of
History in either positive or negative way.
WHY IS TRANSFER OF LEARNING IMPORTANT?
 Assumption of education: what is taught in a course will be used in relevant
situations in other courses, in the workplace and out of school.
 Because the learning situation often differs from the context of application,
the goal of training is not accomplished unless transfer occurs.
 All new learning involves transfer based on previous learning.
 If there were no transfer, students would need to be taught every act that they
would ever perform in any situation.

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BILATERAL TRANSFER OF LEARNING
Human body is divided into two laterals left and right when training is
imparted to one lateral automatically it gets transferred to other lateral it is known
as bilateral transfer of training it can be proved.
Bilateral Transfer of Learning, from many experiments it appeared clear that
skill acquired in a particular task by practice on one hand can often be carried over
to the other hand (Woodworth and Scholsberg, 1971). This Process is known as
Bilateral Transfer.
For instance, once a person has learned to shoot a basketball with their right
hand it is not difficult to transfer that learning to the left hand. This transfer of
learning is made possible by the two-way information traffic that exists through the
corpus callosum, the band of fibres in the brain that allows the two hemispheres to
communicate and transfer information. A useful and helpful application is that
following brain damage some skills and knowledge can be transferred from one area
of the brain to another.

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Experiment conduct on Bilateral Transfer of Learning
AIM: Transfer of Learning
OBJECTIVE: To study Bilateral Transfer of Learning
METHOD: Trial and Error method (It is characterized by repeated, varied
attempts which are continued until success, or until the practitioner stops trying.)
MATERIAL REQUIRED:
• Mirror Drawing Task handout
• A mirror that is able to stand vertical or tilt forward (a mirror that only
tilts backward will not work).
• Cardboard to block direct viewing of your hand while tracing.
• Pencil for tracing and recording results
• Tape to hold paper in place while tracing
• Clock, watch or stopwatch for keeping time (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS FOR MIRROR DRAWING TASK:
• Place your paper in front of your
mirror.
• Position your cardboard between you
and your paper so that you cannot see
your hand. Your partner can hold the
cardboard in place.
• Look into the mirror. You should be
able to see your hand and the star only
through the mirror. Adjust if
necessary.
• Trace the star, beginning at the “s”
• Have your partner time how long it
takes you to complete the star.
• Circle all of the points where the
tracing touches the edge of the star.
Count how many circles you drew
(each time your tracing touches the
edge of the star counts as one error)
• Record your findings in the table
provided.

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OBSERVATION OF MIRROR DRAWING:
LH LH RH RH RH RH RH RH
No of
Trial 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time
(Sec) 209 200 150 181 122 128 121 109
No of
Error 11 14 7 11 12 7 8 9
RH RH RH RH RH RH LH LH
No of
Trial 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Time
(Sec) 136 111 110 119 95 90 167 88
No of
Error 9 6 6 5 6 6 10 9
ANALYSIS:
Recent study on bilateral transfer suggests that imagery training can
facilitate the transfer of motor skill from a trained limb to that of an untrained
limb above and beyond that of physical practice. To further explore this effect, the
present study examined the influence of practice duration and task difficulty on the
extent to which imagery training and physical training influences bilateral transfer
of a Mirror drawing of Star shape. It was found that on 1st
trail tracing star with
life hand looking into mirror was time consuming plus coordination between hand
and mind was not effective count was error was more, same goes with 2nd
trail too,
even from right hand coordination of hand and brain was not that. After doing
practice again and again till trial count 8th
, 9th
(time in sec 136 & error 9) direction
from brain was not that effective but understanding level was improved. From trial
no 10 it improved a lot in count of error (6) and time taken (111sec) as we can see in
table. It was consistent till trial 14. Even from left hand trail no 15 error count was
high but it was improve from previous, in trail 16 left hand was also able to act like
right hand, error count(9) and time consumption(88) was very less. In a subsequent
bilateral transfer test using our non-dominant arm and dominant arm. Results
indicated that physical practice is more effective at facilitating bilateral transfer
compared to training with imagery. Interestingly, significant bilateral transfer was
only observed for transfer from the non-dominant to the dominant arm with no
differences observed between performing the task in an original or mirror ordered
task. Overall, these findings suggest that imagery training may benefit bilateral
transfer primarily at the initial stages of learning, but with extended training,
physical practice leads to larger influences on transfer.

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Educational Implication
1. We have seen that transfer of learning takes place because of similarity of
content technique, method or because of generalisation. If a student fails to
detect the two similarity between two situations, transfer will not take place.
Remember that transfer of learning does not take place automatically. We
have to teach with transfer in mind.
2. Teachers many times teach specific facts, without getting meaningful
generalizations. In the teaching of geometry students are generally taught
bisecting a single angle in a particular position, many of them fail to bisect
the three angles of a triangle simple because they are acquainted with the
bisection of an angle in one particular position. Teacher should provide varied
experiences. Problems in algebra should not be worked out only with
unknowns such as x and y but also with other unknowns such as m,n,a, b, p,q
and so on.
3. Make the learning experiences as much as possible similar to life like
situations. If democratic way of life is accepted by the society, it should be
practiced in the school through activities such as the election of a student’s
council.
4. Sometimes, opportunities for transfer are lost because teachers do not alert
students to look for relationships and to see how material which is being
learned can be of future usefulness. In studies of transfer value of foreign
languages it has been found that the greatest effect of English vocabulary
occurs when relationship between English words and their Latin, French, or
Spanish roots are shown as a planned part of the teaching procedure. In the
teaching of regional languages, teachers should show how many of the words
are derived from regional Sanskrit roots.
5. Bad habits of work may transfer from one situation to another and may have
a detrimental effect on learning. Students develop faulty habits of study in
the early years of schooling which they carry over at a later stage even when
they join a college. Many college students use fingers for counting while
adding two numbers. Teachers should pay attention to the development of
proper methods of study and habits of work.
6. It is now well established that greater transfer from subject matter can be
achieved by changing the methods of teaching. If the subject matter is taught
in isolation from the problems of daily life, the utility of the knowledge
gained is extremely limited. In one study 16% increase in transfer was
obtained by simply telling the student that the material they were learning
would be useful in other situation.

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7. Emphasis should be given on developing ideals and attitudes. If a child is
brought up to practice fair play and to accept it as the proper way of
behaviour, it is likely that the child may display it in all is dealings in adult
life.
8. If the teacher does not encourage critical thinking on the part of students and
if he does not emphasis understanding of principles but encourage mere rote
learning, students fail to adapt to new situations. A student can learn to
multiply fractions without understanding the procedure. He may do well on
task like – Multiply: ( 3/4 x4/5) 0r (7/12x12/17).
Reference
• https://www.slideshare.net/arihantcollege9/transfer-of-
learning-66335414
• https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.po
ne.0152228
• http://www.igntu.ac.in/eContent/BEd-02Sem-
DrShikhaBanarji-teaching%20and%20learning.pdf

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