Transfer taxonomy for teaching in the VET system

The purpose of the study is to test a taxonomy for teaching for transfer in the general subjects of the VET programmes

The taxonomy is based on the principle of identical elements(Thorndike & Woodworth, 1901) and on two pairs of concepts that derive from this principle. The one pair is specific/general transfer that concerns what is transferred, i.e. the contents of the teaching and learning, including the difference between instrumental and communicative learning.(Eraut, 1994; Aarkrog, 2006) The other pair is near/far transfer, which describes the contexts of transfer, i.e. the learning and the transfer situations (Ellis, 1965; Persson, 1995). 

The taxonomy systematizes ways of differentiating the part of curriculum concerning teaching for transfer in order to meet the very heterogeneous group of students in Danish VET. 

One of the greatest challenges in the dual VET system is to secure cohesion between the theoretical and practical parts of the programme. This includes teaching the students how to transfer the knowledge and skills into practice that they obtain in the school-based parts of the programme. 

Practice related teaching has proved to only partly improving the students’ learning.(Aarkrog, 2008) The idea of the taxonomy is that the teacher can adjust the amount of identical elements between the learning and transfer situations in accordance with on the one hand the cognitive load that is demanded to learn the current theory and on the other hand the qualifications of the students. 

The paper outlines the variables of the taxonomy, which is based on a taxonomy for higher education programmes (Barnett & Ceci, 2002) and adjusted to the VET programmes.

The taxonomy is put to the test in a number of courses in order to adjust the taxonomy to VET.

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