A collaborative perspective on learning transfer

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that it is important to focus on the apprentices' collaborative learning processes when addressing issues of learning transfer.Design/methodology/approach – The claims about the importance of addressing processes of collaborative activities and learning in relation to learning transfer are based on the study following the completion of questionnaires by 243 apprentices and interviews in which 19 baker apprentices participated.Findings – The research results prove that it is important to pay attention to collaborative activities among learners in order to ensure learning transfer.Research limitations/implications – One limitation of the study is that it does not elaborate on reasons that some apprentices are motivated to integrate what they were taught at vocational college in a workplace setting while others are not motivated to do so.Practical implications – Educators will become more aware of individual and collective initiatives to cross the boundaries be...

[1]  Y. Engeström,et al.  Polycontextuality and Boundary Crossing in Expert Cognition: Learning and Problem Solving in Complex Work Activities. , 1995 .

[2]  Alison Fuller,et al.  Young People as Teachers and Learners in the Workplace: Challenging the Novice-expert Dichotomy , 2004 .

[3]  H. Simon,et al.  Situated Learning and Education1 , 1996 .

[4]  Michael Young,et al.  From transfer to boundary-crossing between school and work as a tool for developing vocational education: An introduction , 2003 .

[5]  Steinar Kvale,et al.  Mesterlære : læring som social praksis , 1999 .

[6]  D. Schunk.  Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective , 1991 .

[7]  Phil Hodkinson.  Reconceptualising the relations between college‐based and workplace learning , 2005 .

[8]  Lene Tanggaard,et al.  Learning at trade vocational school and learning at work: boundary crossing in apprentices’ everyday life , 2007 .

[9]  Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  Collaborative dialogue patterns in naturalistic one-to-one tutoring , 1995 .

[10]  S. Kvale.  Interviews : an introduction to qualitative research interviewing , 1996 .

[11]  J. Greeno.  On Claims That Answer the Wrong Questions , 1997 .

[12]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[13]  J. Greeno,et al.  Transfer of situated learning , 1996 .

[14]  Michael Eraut,et al.  Transfer of knowledge between education and workplace settings , 2012 .

[15]  J. Lave.  Cognition in Practice: Outdoors: a social anthropology of cognition in practice , 1988 .

[16]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity , 1998 .

[17]  A. Sfard.  On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One , 1998 .

[18]  Amedeo Giorgi,et al.  Concerning the Possibility of Phenomenological Psychological Research , 1983 .

[19]  K. Nielsen,et al.  The Workplace — a Landscape of Learning , 2005 .

[20]  Frank X. Braun.  Vocational Training as a Link between the Schools and the Labour Market: the dual system in the Federal Republic of Germany , 1987 .

[21]  K. Nielsen.  Learning, Trajectories of Participation and Social Practice , 2008, Outlines. Critical Practice Studies.

[22]  C. Elmholdt.  Metaphors for Learning: Cognitive acquisition versus social participation , 2003 .