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Handbook of Research in Educational Communications and Technology pp 73–96Cite as

Enhancing Knowledge Transfer

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“How can design for learning with technology facilitate knowledge transfer from educational to non-educational contexts?” To answer this question, we start with a review of five theoretical approaches to transfer: behaviorist, cognitive, situated, participationist, and developmental practices approach. We stress that they are not mutually exclusive, but that they emphasize different types of knowledge. We distinguish between declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and relational knowledge. Next, we identify four strategies for utilizing educational technologies to enhance transfer: coupling of educational and non-educational contexts, separate context of training, simulating a non-educational context, and introduction of educational context within non-educational setting. We illustrate each of them with paradigmatic learning designs and link them to the different strategies for technology use. Specifically, we discuss the learning designs of computer-based skills training (behaviorist approach), model-based learning (cognitive approach), epistemic games (situated cognition approach), mediational practices (participationist approach), and knowledge co-creation (developmental practices approach). We emphasize that all learning designs have greater chances of being effective if they are well integrated in wider learning contexts. This places limits on their scalability, both in terms of student numbers and in terms of situations of use.

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Acknowledgments

Research for this chapter has been partly funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark, Grant No. DFF-4180-00062.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Kolding, Denmark

    Nina Bonderup Dohn & Roland Hachmann

  2. Sydney School of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Lina Markauskaite

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  1. Nina Bonderup Dohn
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  2. Lina Markauskaite
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Correspondence to Nina Bonderup Dohn .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation, University System of Maryland, Adelphi, MD, USA

    M. J. Bishop

  2. Instructional Systems Technology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Elizabeth Boling

  3. Education and Training, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Jan Elen

  4. Organization, Information & Learning Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Vanessa Svihla

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Dohn, N.B., Markauskaite, L., Hachmann, R. (2020). Enhancing Knowledge Transfer. In: Bishop, M.J., Boling, E., Elen, J., Svihla, V. (eds) Handbook of Research in Educational Communications and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36119-8_5

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