| Today's workforce is faced with rapid change and continuous learning as a result of the transformation to a knowledge economy. Since learning has become an on-going process, renewed efforts are underway by educators to enhance how people are taught and to improve students' abilities to apply their knowledge to a variety of new situations. The phenomenon known as far transfer occurs when individuals are able to use concepts and principles from a base domain to solve a problem in a target domain. The average person often struggles with unique problems because knowledge is typically constructed in isolated domains and is not easily transferred. In fact, studies attempting to reproduce far transfer ability in students have had mixed results for over a century. This research is a case study that applies the techniques for producing far transfer in a college level logic course. The objectives were to observe how well the techniques could be used in this course, to measure the students' progress in applying logic to different domains of knowledge, and to assess student reactions to the course. The collection of qualitative data included classroom observations, instructor interviews, and student input using a focus group. Performance was measured using a pre-test and post-test. A five-question survey was administered during selected sessions to evaluate student reactions. The qualitative data documented the instructor's effective teaching style and his ability to apply far transfer teaching strategies. While none of the students passed the pre-test, only four passed the post-test using pre-determined criteria. The post-test results demonstrate the difficulty in prompting far transfer, even when students believe they have learned a great deal and have positive reactions to a course. The instructor found it difficult to differentiate treatment and non-treatment sessions, but a significant difference appeared in student ratings of how much they thought they had learned in far transfer treatment sessions. Two other results approached significance. Student level of satisfaction on treatment nights was slightly higher than non-treatment night and lecture was perceived as slightly more difficult on non-treatment nights. |
