This article was downloaded by: [University of Utrecht]
On: 10 August 2010
Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 907217953]
Publisher Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 3741 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Education and Work
Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713430545
Promoting learning and transfer between school and workplace
Riitta Konkolaa; Terttu Tuomi-Gröhnb; Pirjo Lambertc; Sten Ludvigsend
a
Helsinki Polytechnic and University of Helsinki, Finland b University of Helsinki, Finland c Helsinki
Business Polytechnic, University of Helsinki, Finland d University of Oslo, Norway
To cite this Article Konkola, Riitta , Tuomi-Gröhn, Terttu , Lambert, Pirjo and Ludvigsen, Sten(2007) 'Promoting learning
and transfer between school and workplace', Journal of Education and Work, 20: 3, 211 — 228
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13639080701464483
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639080701464483
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf
This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Journal of Education and Work
Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2007, pp. 211–228
Promoting learning and transfer
between school and workplace
Riitta Konkolaa*, Terttu Tuomi-Gröhnb, Pirjo Lambertc and
Sten Ludvigsend
aHelsinki
Polytechnic and University of Helsinki, Finland; bUniversity of Helsinki,
Finland;
Business Polytechnic, University of Helsinki, Finland; dUniversity of
Oslo, Norway
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
cHelsinki
International
10.1080/13639080701464483
CJEW_A_246328.sgm
0950-0693
Original
Taylor
02007
00
[email protected]
RiittaKonkola
000002007
and
&
Article
Francis
(print)/1464-5289
Francis
JournalLtd
of Science
(online)
Education
The aim of this article is to discuss the theoretical and practical problems in effecting transfer
between school and work, and to present a new conceptualisation of transfer called developmental
transfer that shifts the emphasis from the individual transfer of knowledge to the collaborative efforts
of organisations to create new knowledge and practices. We give an overview and evaluate the
current notions of transfer and present the need and characteristics of the developmental transfer. In
a case study, we also describe the concrete tools for promoting the developmental transfer in professional higher education. A new way of enhancing collaboration between the school and the workplace is based on successful boundary crossing and the formation of a shared object between activity
systems.
Keywords: Transfer; Developmental transfer; Higher education; Activity system;
Boundary crossing
Introduction
In complex societies, one of the driving forces behind individual and collective development is the communication and transfer of knowledge between institutions. The
legitimacy of the educational sector rests heavily on assumptions that transfer occurs
between an educational institution and a workplace. Collaboration between school
and work has, on the other hand, been the main focus on improving the vocational
education in the new millennium. This has been the trend in European countries,
*Corresponding author. Helsinki Polytechnic and University of Helsinki, Center for Activity Theory
and Developmental Work Research, City of Helsinki, Finland. Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1363-9080 (print)/ISSN 1469-9435 (online)/07/030211–18
© 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13639080701464483
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
212 R. Konkola et al.
where workplace learning is increasingly being discussed within a common European
framework.
As the problem of integrating theory and practice has traditionally been
approached as a problem of transfer, it is not surprising that the discussion about
transfer has been intensive. During the last 100 years, many strong claims have been
made for the importance of transfer in education. The intensification of the debate
during the last 10–15 years is evident in articles by Anderson et al. (1996, 1997),
Greeno (1997) and De Corte (1999). More recently, Tuomi-Gröhn and Engeström
(2003) have published the book Between School and Work: New Perspectives on Transfer
and Boundary Crossing. Other authors have also given extensive reviews of various
aspects of transfer (Pea, 1987; Detterman, 1993; Greeno et al., 1993; Beach, 1999;
Bransford & Schwartz, 1999; Packer, 2001; Carraher & Schliemann, 2002).
Achieving significant transfer in learning has proven to be difficult (see Gruber
et al., 1995; Mayer & Wittrock, 1996). However, successful experiments with the
cognitive approach (e.g. Singley & Anderson, 1989) and in cultural–historical activity
theory (CHAT) (Tuomi-Gröhn, 2003) demonstrate that transfer of learning to new
situations or tasks is not impossible. The partial incompatibility of these findings
points to the need to find new conceptualisations of transfer and educational arrangements to facilitate it.
The discussion in the earlier-mentioned publications has mainly concentrated on
the debate between cognitive approaches and situated or socio-cultural approaches.
This tension serves as the backdrop of our presentation here. We base our work on a
new developmental perspective on transfer that attempts to go beyond the opposition
between cognitive notions and their situated challenges by shifting the emphasis from
an individual to a collective conceptualisation of transfer. This view of transfer is based
on cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT) (Vygotsky, 1929; Leont’ev, 1978) and
is called developmental transfer. Developmental transfer gives us a framework with
which we can explain how new knowledge, activities and practices are created.
The three aims of this article are: (1) to reframe the understanding of the idea of
transfer of knowledge and what counts as transfer, based on a comparison of CHAT
with other current approaches to transfer; (2) to present developmental transfer as a
new approach to transfer between school and workplace; and (3) to give an example
of how developmental transfer was successfully promoted in Finnish professional
higher education, in an occupational therapy education.
Current approaches to transfer
In this section, we introduce and evaluate the current approaches to transfer in order
to show that a novel developmental approach in vocational education is needed.
Cognitive view of learning and transfer. Cognitive notions of transfer are based on the
idea that knowledge is transferred from the solution of one task to the solution of
another task. The problem solver is seen as an active participant in the problem-solving
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Promoting learning and transfer between school and workplace
213
process, as one who must manage the way the prior knowledge is used to solve a new
problem (see also Perkins & Salomon, 1987; Mayer & Wittrock, 1996; Soini, 1999).
A number of cognitive psychologists refer to mental schemas as a theoretical basis
for understanding transfer. Most versions of the symbolic schema theory use word
‘problems’ as a structural model. For instance, solving an arithmetic problem depends
on recognising a pattern of relations among the quantities that are described in the
problem. Transfer occurs if the pattern of quantities in the transfer problem is recognised as fitting a previously used schema. Transfer, therefore, requires the ability to
interpret the learned symbolic schema in the transfer situation (Greeno et al., 1993).
The traditional cognitive view emphasises the static quality of transfer in experimental practice. Transfer is treated as a process of taking a given item and applying
it somewhere else (see also Hatano & Greeno, 1999). However, more recent studies
based on the cognitive approach, like that of Bransford and Schwarz (1999), refer to
a future orientation of transfer where neither the knowledge nor the environment is
considered static.
Some representatives of the theories of situated learning (notably Lave, 1988; see
also Lave & Wenger, 1991; Greeno et al., 1993) have been critical of cognitively
oriented transfer research. The target of critics is the separation of cognition from the
social world, the separation of form and content implied in the practice of investigating isomorphic problem solving and a strictly cognitive explanation for continuity in
activity across situations (Lave, 1988, p. 43).
Situated learning and transfer. According to situated approaches, knowledge is not
only mentally structured but fundamentally bound to particular situations. Learning
and knowing are processes of participation and apprenticeship in communities of
practice. Because each situation is unique, a number of representatives of the situated
learning approach (e.g. Lave, 1988) deny the possibilities of transfer.
Some other representatives (e.g. Greeno, 1997) take a more moderate stance and
argue that what is transferred from task to task is not knowledge or abstract schemes
but patterns of participatory processes across everyday situations.1 The context of the
transfer is extended from tasks in a school to situations in everyday life outside school.
Not only symbolic, abstract schemata are transferred but also, and mainly, action
schemata. The issue confronting transfer, then, is to understand how learning to
participate in one situation can influence (positively or negatively) one’s ability to
participate in a related activity in a different situation (Greeno et al., 1993, p. 100).
The master–novice relationship is considered important when learning about these
interactions and transferring them to new situations. In order to emphasise this
conceptualisation of transfer compared to previous approaches, Hatano and Greeno
(1999) propose to use the term productivity, rather than transfer, to refer to the generality of learning in a situated approach.
The view of transfer as situated is promising, in that it switches the locus of learning
from an isolated Cartesian individual to a novice participating in a community of
practice. In doing so, it also expands the structures of knowledge to include not just
214 R. Konkola et al.
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
mental and symbolic representations but also physical artefacts and recurring
patterns of social practice. However, this approach does not help students to apply
theoretical concepts and models in practice. In addition, the situated view of transfer
depicts communities of practice as stable environments and does not address the
outward movement, radical innovation and changes that are so common in today’s
working life environments (Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003).
Socio-cultural perspective and transfer. Drawing on a number of socio-cultural oriented
theories, Beach (1999) has called attention to the dynamic nature of social situations.
Beach is critical of current cognitive notions of transfer that assume the static nature
of the tasks or situations across which transfer occurs. The result is that the role of the
individual learner is overemphasised and those who are involved in collective tasks or
who see them as dynamic processes are excluded from the processes of transfer.
Beach emphasises the changing, dynamic nature of transfer situations instead of
conceptualising transfer in terms of movement between static settings. Learning is
not only needed in the original learning situations, but also in transfer situations.
Beach’s framework defines the transfer above all as movement across the boundaries
of different activity contexts, such as between a school and a place of internship,
between school and work, between different levels of education, etc. Transitions can
be multi-directional and reciprocal. It is not only the knowledge that moves, but the
entire human being, including his or her identity and social participation, changes as
well. In this process, the learner reconstructs his or her relation to the context.
According to Beach, transfer is a transition of multiple individual learning characteristics between changing social situations. Beach uses the term consequential transition
instead of transfer to emphasise the dynamic nature of transfer.
Beach’s framework is promising in emphasising the dynamic nature of transfer.
However, in his approach, the locus of learning is still firmly in the individual. In addition, while Beach points out that multiple processes are involved in consequential
transitions, he does not really elaborate on the specific nature of these processes.
Developmental perspectives and transfer. From the point of view of activity theory,
previous accounts of transfer are inadequate in that the unit of analysis of learning
and transfer is still depicted as an individual, confined within his or her relatively
enclosed ‘situational domain’ or movement between different organisations. An
activity–theoretical view (Engeström, 1987) offers a new unit of analysis of learning
and cognition: a collective, object-orientated activity system. The learning of an
activity system (Leont’ev, 1978), such as a school or work organisation, and the
learning of an individual are intertwined, and the individual’s learning is understandable only if we understand the ways in which the entire activity system ‘learns’. In this
view, significant learning processes take place in collective activities. Collective learning
can be described as in Figure 1.
Figure 1 describes individual activities as a part of collective activities. The upper
part of the triangle describes the individual activities. In an activity system, the word
Figure 1. An activity system (Source: Engeström, 1987)
Promoting learning and transfer between school and workplace
215
TOOLS
SUBJECT
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
RULES
OBJECT
COMMUNITY
Figure 1.
OUTCOME
DIVISON OF LABOUR
An activity system (Source: Engeström, 1987)
subject refers to the ‘individual’, e.g. a student, whose point of view is adopted in the
analysis. The object refers to the ‘raw material’ or ‘problem area’ to which the activity
is directed, e.g. the profession to be learned. The object of the activity is oriented
towards a particular goal and is transformed to produce outcomes. Examples of the
outcomes in professional higher education are the graduated experts. Results are
achieved with the help of mediating instruments, understood here as mental or material tools and signs that are available within an organisation. Examples of tools in
professional higher education might include learning strategies or theoretical and
practical models of the profession to be learned.
The bottom row of the model describes the relationship between an individual and
a collective activity system. Rules refer to the explicit or implicit regulations that
constrain actions. For instance, rules could be the degree regulations that govern the
actions of the students. Community denotes all the participants, e.g. students, teachers
and student counsellors who share the same object in an effort to produce change in
the object. Division of labour refers to the distribution of tasks, authority and benefits
among these participants.
As social organisations are constantly growing and changing, demands for professional expertise have also encountered new challenges. Expertise is not only manifested in performing known tasks. New problems arise constantly, and there is little
reason to expect that their solutions can be quickly turned into routine repeatable
procedures. These conditions give rise to a need for a horizontal expertise, where
practitioners must move across boundaries to seek and give help, and they must be
able to find information and tools wherever these happen to be available (see
Engeström et al., 1995). The master–novice relationship is becoming problematic
because new situations demand dialogical, collaborative problem-solving approaches. A
central feature of this kind of expertise may be characterised as the boundary crossing
between activity systems. This implies bringing information, knowledge and practices
from one activity system to another.
216 R. Konkola et al.
In preparing to face constantly changing society, the subjects of different activity
systems, such as a student, a teacher or a practitioner, have to cross the boundaries
of their own activity system to seek and bring information, knowledge and practices
from other activity systems. In this mode of activities, namely boundary crossing
(Engeström et al., 1995), the basic model is expanded to include minimally two interacting activity systems (Figure 2). Boundaries between school and workplaces have
developed over a long period of time. They emerge easily during internship periods
where the theoretical and practical studies are separated from each other. However,
school and workplace could have a potentially shared object that rises from the work
activity and its developmental needs.
From the student’s point of view, one’s future workplace will inevitably be caught
in developmental turmoil. Thus, the best way to learn is to become engaged in real
life processes of change while still in school. Internship periods, often extended and
substantively remodelled, produce natural opportunities for schools to take on new
roles and foster collaboration with workplaces.
Collaboration between school and work offers a new possibility and challenge to
reconceptualise the problem of transfer. Since 1998, a research group in the University of Helsinki, the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research,
has actively developed a new developmental perspective to transfer called ‘developmental transfer’.
Engeström (2001b) defines three characteristics of developmental transfer: (1)
learning is a process where several activity systems, such as a school and a workplace, implement a shared developmental project with contributions from all the
participants; (2) one or more theoretical concepts created during the learning
process facilitate the understanding and reconstructing the object of work in a new
way. For instance, the problems of the patient can turn the student to reconstruct
the object of the studies from acquiring new knowledge to a patient needing care.
This is a decisive change; (3) and the learning process leads to implementation of
the new concepts as tools or models of new activities or solutions.
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Figure 2. School and workplace as integrating activity systems
Tools
Tools
Subject
Rules
Object
Community
Division
of labor
Activity system of
school
Figure 2.
Potentially
Shared
Object
Object
Division
of labor
Subject
Community
Rules
Activity system of
a workplace
School and workplace as integrating activity systems
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Promoting learning and transfer between school and workplace
217
In this phase, we can raise a question: what actually transfers in the case of developmental transfer? It is not only the transfer of individual knowledge from task to
task, or the transfer of individual practices from one everyday situation to another, but
also a change of identity during the training process. Instead, the goal is to give tools
to students and practitioners to deal effectively with new situations. This model of
confronting a new situation with a process of expansive learning (Engeström, 1987)
and multi-voiced discussion between two activity systems transfers from one work
situation to another. This is the very essence of developmental transfer.
Because activity systems are, by their nature, diverse, hybrid and multi-voiced,
contradictions and conflicts between different types of activities and activity
systems can be the moving forces for expansive learning cycles in activity systems.
Expansion happens substantively, by constructing a more encompassing object and
motive for the activity (substance dimension), and socially, by recruiting a growing
number of participants in the transformation effort (social dimension) (Engeström,
1987). In studies based on developmental transfer (Lambert, 1999; Tuomi-Gröhn,
2001; Konkola, 2003; Lukkarinen, 2005) the results of the developmental projects
have been evaluated by analysing: (1) the expansion of new insights and working
methods to other units or organisations; and (2) further developments of the
knowledge and insights created, either in the original workplace or in other social
organisations.
With an aim to promote developmental transfer the school is in an important
position to offer its expertise and support the efforts of workplaces to change by
organising developmental projects across the boundaries between school and work
and by participating actively in developmental work. This means that school
becomes a collective change agent that works in partnerships with local community
organisations and workplaces. It implies that the school needs to prepare its teachers
and students not just to do their assigned routine jobs but also to work as boundary
crossers between the school and the work organisation, bringing new intellectual
and practical tools and insights into the processes of change (Tuomi-Gröhn &
Engeström, 2003).
Developmental projects based on activity theory differ from many project work
models between school and work in some remarkable features: (1) the learner is not
only the student but the entire team of student, teacher and practitioner. There are
not just a student and supervisors but many learners; (2) the role of a teacher is to be
a change agent instead of a distributor of knowledge; (3) the aim is to create new
knowledge and also new practices. ‘Traditional’ projects are based on the application
of existing knowledge, whereas here the aim is the expansion of knowledge and practices created to other units or organisations. These are demanding goals for educational projects but the results (see Tuomi-Gröhn 2001; Lukkarinen, 2005) indicate
that they are not impossible to achieve.
In the case of activity theory and developmental transfer, we do not deny the meaning of individual learning and transfer but consider them as embedded in the collaborative efforts and transitions between activity systems in the creation of new
knowledge, activities and practices and their transitions to new activity systems.
218 R. Konkola et al.
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Comparison of different conceptualisations of transfer
Table 1 summarises current conceptualisations of transfer according to the basis of
transfer, what transfers from where to where and what transfer is called according to
each approach.
The first notion of transfer, the cognitive approach, is based on the transition of
knowledge from one task to another task. Transfer will occur if the pattern of the
abstract schema model in the transfer problem is recognised to fit the same schema
that was used in initial learning. Research on transfer based on the cognitive approach
is usually carried out in school settings.
In professional higher education, cognitive transfer has been one of the dominant
approaches in promoting transfer. Internships have been designed to move from
applying theory learnt at school to practical application. The emphasis is on the individual acquisition of knowledge and the application of that knowledge in problemsolving situations at workplaces.
The second notion of transfer is based on interaction between an individual and
a social and material context. This view expands the context of transfer from schools
to everyday situations. According to situated notions, patterns of participatory
processes, in other words action schemata, can be transferred from one relatively
stable everyday situation to another. The term ‘productivity’ may be more apt than
transfer in describing what happens here because the focus is outcome-oriented.
Situated approaches are recently becoming popular in professional higher
education (Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2001). It has been suggested that
students are motivated to learn the practices of experts in real work as such when
participating in meaningful actions at the workplace. This view of transfer has led
to arranging various kinds of internship situations for each student. In this way
Table 1.
Comparison of different conceptualizations of transfer
Approach to
transfer
Basis of transfer
What transfers?
Cognitive
Task
Abstract schemata
From where and
where to?
From task to task,
usually in school
context
Situated
Individual in stable Social participation
From one static
context
everyday situation
to another
Socio-cultural Individual in
Personal knowledge,
From one changing
dynamic contexts social participation and social organization
identity
to another
Activity theory Collaborative
Collaborative concept From one dynamic
activity system to
activity systems
formation
New concepts are used another
as tools or models of
new activities
Transfer is
called
Transfer
Productivity
Consequential
transition
Developmental
transfer
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Promoting learning and transfer between school and workplace
219
each student is able to see how principles and different types of knowledge are
used in practice.
To a certain extent, the conceptualisation of transfer based on socio-cultural views
combines previous approaches that see the unit of analysis of transfer as involving
both individual cognition and participatory everyday processes along with growth of
an individual’s identity. All these are involved when a student moves between changing social situations from home to school or from workplace to school and back.
These transitions are multi-directional and reciprocal. Instead of transfer, Beach uses
the term ‘consequential transition’.
In professional higher education, we can also see features of consequential transition when students are moving between school and workplace. The most important
feature is the strong emphasis on identity construction. This topic comes up when the
teacher traces the development of the students and when students discuss the practices with experienced practitioners.
The important difference between developmental transfer and other current
notions of transfer is that developmental transfer conceptualises learning and transfer
as a collective process, the entire activity system as the unit of analysis (Figure 2). The
aim of developmental transfer is to create new knowledge and practices and the
expansion of these activities to both school and working life organisations.
Promoting developmental transfer in occupational therapy education
Traditionally, internships in occupational therapy education have been the most
common means of linking studies with working life. During their internships,
students practise in different kinds of hospitals and rehabilitation centres. Tutorial
conversations, organised once or twice during the internship, have been the most
usual means of reinforcing collaboration between school and workplace.
In an analysis of these kinds of tutorial discussions, Konkola (2001) found that the
main tutorial activities are guidance and evaluation. Konkola made the significant
observation concerning these conversations that while a teacher and a student
discuss the student and his or her learning, the occupational therapist rarely takes
part. Similarly, when the student and the occupational therapist discuss events at
workplaces during the internship, the teacher keeps quiet. These observations can be
explained by the lack of shared interests and experiences.
Internships have long been structured around learning tasks. Usually these learning
tasks are set by the teachers and serve as the means of attaining the individual goals
of the student. They appear as the student’s private means of learning and creating
knowledge, free from interference from the work community (Lambert, 2001, 2003a).
According to Konkola (2000) and Lambert (2001, 2003a), traditional tutorial
conversations and learning tasks are not designed to promote collaboration between
school and working life. However, these carry the crucial potential for developmental
transfer.
In the occupational therapy education, developmental transfer is applied by creating
a developmental project where three parties learn in collaboration and dialogue: the
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
220 R. Konkola et al.
school, the student and the occupational therapy unit aiming at expanding knowledge
and practices.
The starting point of the research project in the occupational therapy education
was that learning tasks could be consciously transferred into pedagogical tools that
can serve as boundary objects (Star, 1989) between school and work (Lambert, 2001,
2003a). Then, the main characteristics of the learning tasks are that they stimulate
students, teachers and practitioners to look for shared interests and to create joint
projects to meet these challenges. For this joint activity, new kinds of concrete places
for collaboration, negotiation and boundary crossing are needed. Lambert (1999,
2003b) has developed the model of ‘learning studio’ as a boundary-crossing place,
where students, teachers and practitioners can discuss together their developmental
projects in a multi-voiced debate.
An internship provides a natural setting for collaboration between school and workplace.2 It identifies a terrain where these two activity systems encounter each other.
In order to illustrate the previous approaches to transfer and to present our novel
approach, we use, as an example, the case of occupational therapy education within
professional higher education in Finland. In the present case, we are looking for those
possibilities or obstacles that appear when school and workplace collaborate in an
effort to tap the potential for transfer.
Developing a new learning task for internships. In the occupational therapy education,
a new learning task called ‘therapy process and professionalism’ was developed by a
teacher team and introduced during the third internship period in the fifth semester
of degree studies. The aim of the task was to promote the collaboration between
school and workplace in development of the occupational therapy.
In the first phase of the learning task, students were encouraged to act as agents for
change and interview the occupational therapists at the workplace in question. The
main focus of this interview task was to evoke special interest in developing some area
of occupational therapy and to create a basis for a joint project between the occupational therapy education and the workplace. Students were asked to use the model of
an activity system when framing interview questions.
In the second phase, the students, the teachers and the occupational therapists
were encouraged to form a team in order to create a joint project around the developmental need founded in the interview. They were asked to make a plan to deal with
the developmental need. The second phase included meetings, networks and experiments that were needed for the project.
In the third phase, the students were asked to arrange a learning studio in which
they were required to call together the staff of the workplace, the teachers and other
necessary participants to evaluate and further develop the results and insights of the
developmental project.
To determine the usefulness of this new learning task, particularly its suitability for
creating boundary objects and crossing boundaries, we had to evaluate the task in use.
This was also necessary in order to determine whether the features needed to promote
developmental transfer were present.
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Promoting learning and transfer between school and workplace
221
Development of mirror rehabilitation. Sari, an occupational therapy student, completed
her internship (seven weeks) at a district hospital in Helsinki. This hospital had an
occupational therapy unit with special experience in treating patients with stroke. It
appeared from the initial interview that there was a need to update traditional occupational therapy methods for patients with stroke because of shortened treatment
periods and new information about rehabilitation.
The occupational therapist involved in the internship reported that a well-known
brain researcher from Helsinki University of Technology had developed a new
method for rehabilitating patients with stroke. This therapy was associated with new
findings concerning the connection between the visual and motor areas of the brain
(Hari et al., 1998). This connection is facilitated by using a mirror in the following
way: the patient is requested to sit at a table with both arms extended out on the table.
A mirror is placed upright between the arms, the paralysed arm behind the mirror (see
Figure 3). When the patient starts to move his or her healthy arm, looking at the same
time in the mirror, he or she receives a visual impression that his or her paralysed arm
is also moving. This visual reflection is thought to activate the neurological systems
of the brain and thus have a positive impact on the paralysed arm (Hovilahti-Laine &
Salonen, 2001).
Nobody had had an opportunity to try out this new method before it was studied
in the internship, despite considerable interest in it. The occupational therapists
suggested to Sari that she might explore the theoretical basis and applicability of that
method as a learning task for her internship.
During the internship, Sari made a formal contact with the brain researcher from
Helsinki University of Technology, who was very pleased to hear that her ideas and
research findings were going to be tested. Especially important was the fact that Sari,
her teacher and the occupational therapist met regularly during the internship and
examined the theoretical basis for the method jointly. They called the method mirror
rehabilitation and planned how Sari could experiment with it.
According to the plan, Sari used the mirror rehabilitation method with a patient
and collected data from that experiment. Sari wrote a summary of her experimental
Figure 3. Patient with mirror (Source: Hovilahti-Laine & Salonen, 2001)
Figure 3.
Patient with mirror (Source: Hovilahti-Laine & Salonen, 2001)
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
222 R. Konkola et al.
work and the new knowledge it had produced. She arranged a learning studio at the
hospital at the end of her internship and invited the brain researcher, the staff from
the hospital and the teacher to attend. At this learning studio, the brain researcher
reported her latest discoveries about brain functions, and Sari gave an account of her
experiences with the mirror rehabilitation method. The participants were eager to
experiment with a mirror themselves in order to confirm its effectiveness and to evaluate its possible adaptation for use in treating other patient groups (e.g. patients with
amputation).
This internship and the learning task formed the basis for a longer period of collaboration between the occupational therapy education, the hospital, the brain researcher
and another student. During this collaborative work with a shared object many new
contacts (e.g. with the Department of Psychology of the University of California at
San Diego) were made, and, as a result, theory-building and practical knowledge
related to mirror rehabilitation expanded both in working life and in the school.
Characteristics of developmental transfer in the mirror rehabilitation project. According to
Engeström (2001b), there are three characteristics of developmental transfer: (1)
learning is a process where several activity systems implement a shared developmental
project with contributions from all participants; (2) one or more theoretical concepts
created during the learning process facilitate the understanding and reconstructing of
the object of work in a new way; and (3) the learning process leads to implementation
of the new concepts as tools or models of new activities or solutions. An analysis of
the new approach to internship in occupational therapy education and especially of
the example of Sari’s internship reveals many characteristics of developmental transfer.
First, learning was consciously designed to occur across the boundaries between
the occupational therapy education and the hospital. Both the participants of the joint
project were acting as boundary crossers. Concrete boundary crossing between
organisations and areas of expertise occurred when the student got in touch with the
brain researcher, and the brain researcher attended the learning studio organised at
the hospital. Above all, the student and the teacher were acting as boundary crossers
because of their strong role as intermediaries in the joint project. They organised the
boundary-crossing events in meetings and arranged the learning studio on the mirror
rehabilitation method. The learning studio turned out to be an especially important
locus of collaboration and collective learning for the staff of the hospital, the student,
the teacher and the brain researcher.
Second, the participants found a shared object for the joint project in applying the
findings of recent brain research in the rehabilitation of patients with stroke (theoretical insight). Participants critically read the research on mirror neurons (see Murata
et al., 1997; Hari et al., 1998) and the use of a mirror as a therapeutic mean (Altschuler
et al., 1999) and conducted a pilot experiment with a patient with stroke. During the
process, they created the term ‘mirror rehabilitation’ to refer to this new treatment
approach (implication of the theoretical insight).
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Promoting learning and transfer between school and workplace
223
Third, subsequent events demonstrated a clear relationship between developmental transfer and expansions of the insights. In the hospital, the occupational therapists
and the other practitioners started using the mirror rehabilitation method more
systematically and more frequently (social expansion). Participants were also interested in developing the mirror rehabilitation method further in order to gain more
knowledge about it (content expansion). The new method was also demonstrated and
introduced to other hospitals in the Helsinki area with the help of the student, the
teacher and occupational therapists.
It is significant that the learning task in this internship consisted of many boundaryobject characteristics (Lambert, 2003a) that stimulated student, teacher and practitioner to look for shared interests and to create joint projects. The task was left
sufficiently open to allow flexible application in practice as well as boundary crossing
between several activity systems in searching for different kinds of expertise. The new
learning task and boundary-crossing places related to it proved to be useful tools for
collaboration between school and workplace.
Conclusion
This article has had a three-fold aim: (1) to reframe the understanding of the idea of
transfer of knowledge and of what counts as transfer, based on a comparison of the
CHAT with the other current approaches to transfer; (2) to present the new view of
developmental transfer as a new approach to transfer; and (3) to give an example of
how to promote developmental transfer.
We have argued that the cognitive, the situated and the socio-cultural approaches
to transfer do not adequately explain learning and change at the collective level of
activity. There is a need to account for transfer in a way that takes into account the
means by which collective changes in activity systems emerge. The view of developmental transfer conceptualises learning and transfer as a collective process and the
entire activity system as the unit of analysis. The focus on collective activities makes
it possible to understand how collective reciprocal developments between school and
workplace take place and how these developments create the conditions for individual
development, as occurred in the occupational therapy internship in our example.
As part of understanding and implementing developmental transfer, the minimal
unit of analysis is two activity interacting systems, as conceptualised in the third generation of activity theory (Engeström, 2001a). This analysis raises a focus on the boundaries and the processes of constant questioning and their redefinition (Kerosuo, 2003).
At an intermediate level of our theory, we have developed and described new tools
for the boundary crossing. ‘Learning studio’ as a boundary-crossing place (Lambert,
1999, 2003a) has proved to be useful in designating a specific place where the boundary crossers can engage in co-operation between interacting activity systems. We have
also approached boundary objects (Star, 1989) as tools that help us understand and
develop shared objects between school and workplace. We have shown that the idea
of learning tasks as such a boundary object (Lambert, 2001, 2003b) has been
crucially important in promoting developmental transfer.
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
224 R. Konkola et al.
To understand learning in the complex and multi-voiced area between school and
work, the tools described above have been meaningful. This area is like a ‘no-man’s
land’ and can be called ‘boundary zone’ (Konkola 2001, 2003). It refers to the territory where participants from different activity systems meet. A boundary zone is an
area that is free from prearranged routines or rigid patterns. It is also an area where
each activity system reflects its own structure, attitudes, beliefs, norms and roles.
Because elements from both sides are always interacting in the boundary zone, it is
considered to be an area where it is possible to extend the object of each participating
activity system and to create a shared object between them.3 In this way, the activity
itself is reorganised, resulting in new opportunities for learning.
Boundary zone has proved to be an important area where we have focused our
change efforts and empirical studies in the further research of developmental transfer.
We have preliminary observations about the experiments where new tools and solutions for co-operation at the boundary zone between school and work have been
produced. Teacher and supervisor at the workplace can act as a boundary-crossing
dyad (Lambert, 2004; Spets, 2006) that moves together between organisations, and
participates together in developmental activities in both communities. Also writing
and textual tools have been developed for promoting developmental transfer between
school and work (Lambert & Vanhanen-Nuutinen, 2005). These tools aim to help
teachers, students and practitioners to write within the joint projects texts that can
reach the potential readers from working life and support the object construction at
workplaces.
Promoting learning and developmental transfer at the boundary zone has fostered
the emerging of a new kind of activity, called ‘boundary-zone activity’ (Konkola,
2003). In boundary-zone activity the subject is no longer an individual student
performing his or her learning tasks separately from the practitioners and their work
challenges, but a team consisting of one or more teachers, students and practitioners.
This team has a shared task: to develop work practices by benefiting from each participant’s theoretical and practical expertise and with the help of a network of the necessary activity systems. The concept of boundary-zone activity takes us one step
forward in our efforts to understand the processes which lead to developmental transfer. In this joint activity, despite or even as a result of disturbances and contradictions,
a new activity transforms and coordinates the previously divergent activity systems. A
key issue is that these changes occur both at the level of horizontal and vertical expertise. Collective and multi-directional changes need to be part of the process of developmental transfer.
Thus far, we have shown that it is possible to promote developmental transfer
between school and work by constructing tools for learning and boundary crossing.
From an activity-theoretical perspective the appropriation, use and development of
artefacts that mediate the joint activity is a key for understanding workplace learning
and the development of work practices (Miettinen & Virkkunen, 2006). However, we
need longitudinal studies that describe and analyse how different activity systems
interact and create possibilities for developmental transfer. These studies need to
explore the relationship between the material world, institutional trajectories of
Promoting learning and transfer between school and workplace
225
different activity systems and individuals’ learning trajectories (Flo & Ludvigsen,
2002). By varying the level of description, we can develop a better understanding of
the collective transformation that takes place and how individuals learn as part of this
collective change.
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this article benefited from comments by the Transfer-Research
Group of student teachers from the School of Vocational Teacher Education at
Helsinki Business Polytechnic. In particular, we wish to thank Professor Yrjö
Engeström from the University of Helsinki, Professor James G. Greeno, Professor
Roy Pea, Associate Professor Daniel Schwartz and Assistant Professor Náilah Nasir
from the Stanford University and Research Fellow Cecilie Flo Jahreie from the
University of Oslo. Anonymous referees of this journal have also given valuable
comments and criticism. We express our warm thanks.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
See Greeno (1997) and Gruber et al. (1995) for a more comprehensive presentation of different
views of transfer and situated learning theories.
Here, the term ‘internship’ refers to a period of fieldwork or practical training in the occupational therapy education.
Gutiérrez et al. (1995) have used the concept of the ‘third space’ in a similar vein when describing the learning and development that take place when ideas and needs from different cultures
meet, collide and form new meanings.
References
Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M. & Simon, H. A. (1996) Situated learning and education, Educational
Researcher, 25(4), 5–11.
Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M. & Simon, H. A. (1997) Situative versus cognitive perspectives: form
versus substance, Educational Researcher, 26(1), 18–21.
Altschuler, E., Wisdom S., Stone, L., Foster, C., Galasko, D., Llewellyn, D. & Ramachandran,
V. S. (1999) Rehabilitation of hemiparesis after stroke with mirror, The Lancet, 353(12),
2035–2036.
Beach, K. D. (1999) Consequential transitions: a sociocultural expedition beyond transfer in
education, in: A. Iran-Nejad & P. D. Pearson (Eds) Review of research in education (Washington DC, American Educational Research Association), 101–139.
Bransford, J. D. & Schwartz, D. L. (1999) Rethinking transfer: a simple proposal with multiple
implications, in: A. Iran-Nejad & P. D. Pearson (Eds) Review of research in education
(Washington DC, American Educational Research Association), 61–100.
Carraher, D. & Schliemann, A. (2002) The transfer dilemma, Journal of the Learning Sciences,
11(1), 1–24.
De Corte, E. (1999) On the road to transfer: an introduction, International Journal of Educational
Research, 31, 555–559.
Detterman, D. K. (1993) The case for the prosecution: transfer as an epiphenomenon, in: D. K.
Detterman & R. J. Sternberg (Eds) Transfer on trial: intelligence, cognition and instruction
(Norwood, NJ, Ablex), 1–24.
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
226 R. Konkola et al.
Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental
research (Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit).
Engeström, Y. (2001a) Expansive learning at work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualisation, Journal of Education and Work, 14(1), 133–156.
Engeström, Y. (2001b) Kehittävä siirtovaikutus: mitä ja miksi? [Developmental transfer: what and
why?] in: T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds) Koulun ja työn rajavyöhykkeellä: uusia työssä
oppimisen mahdollisuuksia [At the boundary-zone between school and work: new possibilities of workbased learning] (Helsinki, University Press), 19–27.
Engeström, Y., Engestöm, R. & Kärkkäinen, M. (1995) Polycontextuality and boundary crossing
in expert cognition: learning and problem solving in complex work activities, Learning and
Instruction, 5, 319–336.
Flo, C. F. & Ludvigsen, S. (2002) Diversity and innovation in teacher education. Analysis of
different types of participants’ structures and the agents’ meaning-making between different
activity systems, paper presented at the 5th Congress of the International Society for Cultural
Research and Activity Theory, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 22 June.
Greeno, J. G. (1997) On claims that answer the wrong questions, Educational Researcher, 26(1), 5–17.
Greeno, J. G., Moore, J. L. & Smith, D. R. (1993) Transfer of situated learning, in: D. K. Detterman
& R. J. Sternberg (Eds) Transfer on trial: intelligence, cognition and instruction (Norwood, NJ,
Ablex), 99–167.
Gruber, H., Law, C., Mandl, H. & Renkl, A. (1995) Situated learning and transfer state of the art,
in: P. Reimann & H. Spada (Eds) Learning in humans and machines: towards an interdisciplinary
learning science (Oxford, Pergamon), 168–188.
Gutiérrez, K., Rymes, B. & Larson, J. (1995) Script, counterscript and underlife in the classroom:
James Brown versus Brown v. Board of education, Harvard Educational Review, 65(3), 445–471.
Hari, R., Forss, N., Avikainen, S., Kirveskari, E., Salenius, S. & Rizzolatti, G. (1998) Activation of
human primary motor cortex during action observation: a neuromagnetic study, National
Academy of Sciences, 95, 15061–15065.
Hatano, G. & Greeno, J. G. (1999) Commentary: alternative perspectives on transfer and transfer
studies, International Journal of Educational Research, 31, 645–654.
Hovilahti-Laine, M. & Salonen, S. (2001) Peilikuntoutuksen mahdollisuudet toimintaterapiassa:
Hemipareesipotilaan tapaustutkimus [The possibilities of mirror rehabilitation in occupational therapy: a case study of a patient with hemiparesis]. Unpublished final thesis, Helsinki,
Helsinki Polytechnic.
Kerosuo, H. (2003) Boundaries in health care discussions: an activity theoretical approach to the
analysis of boundaries, in: N. Paulsen & T. Hernes (Eds) Managing boundaries in organisations:
multiple perspectives (Basingstoke, Palgrave), 169–187.
Konkola, R. (2000) Ammatillisen koulutuksen ja työelämän rajavyöhykkeellä: käytännön harjoittelun
ohjauskeskustelut kehittävän transferin välineenä [At the boundary-zone between vocational education and working life: tutorial conversations during the internship as tools for developmental transfer] (Helsinki, Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Research, Helsinki
University).
Konkola, R. (2001) Harjoittelun kehittämisprosessi ammattikorkeakoulussa ja rajavyöhyketoiminta
uudenlaisena toimintamallina [Developmental process of internship at polytechinc and boundary-zone activity as a new model for activity], in: T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds) Koulun
ja työn rajavyöhykkeellä: uusia työssä oppimisen mahdollisuuksia [At the boundary-zone between
school and work: new possibilities of work-based learning] (Helsinki, University Press), 148–186.
Konkola, R. (2003) Yhdessä kehittäen: koulutuksen ja työelämän yhteistyön haasteita [Developing together:
the challenges of the collaboration between education and working life] (Helsinki, Helsinki Polytechnic).
Lambert, P. (1999) Rajaviiva katoaa: innovatiivista oppimista ammatillisen opettajankoulutuksen,
oppilaitosten ja työelämän organisaatioiden yhteistyönä [Boundaries fade away: innovative learning
through collaboration between vocational teacher education, training institutes and work organisations]
(Helsinki, Helsinki Polytechnic).
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Promoting learning and transfer between school and workplace
227
Lambert, P. (2001) Oppimistehtävät kehittävän siirtovaikutuksen tuottajina [Learning tasks
producing developmental transfer], in: T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds) Koulun ja
työn rajavyöhykkeellä: uusia työssä oppimisen mahdollisuuksia [At the boundary-zone between
school and work: new possibilities of work-based learning] (Helsinki, University Press), 96–147.
Lambert, P. (2003a) Boundary-crossing place as a tool for developmental transfer between school
and work, in: F. Achtenhagen & E. G. John (Eds) Milestones of vocational and occupational
education and training (Bielefeld, Bertelsmann), 181–216.
Lambert, P. (2003b) Promoting developmental transfer in vocational teacher education, in: T.
Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds) Between education and work: new perspectives on transfer
and boundary crossing (Amsterdam, Pergamon), 233–254.
Lambert, P. (2004) Kehittävää siirtovaikutusta uusia välineitä rakentamalla [Developmental transfer by constructing new artifacts], in: H. Kotila & A. Mutanen (Eds) Tutkiva ja kehittävä
ammattikorkeakoulu [Research and development in polytechnics] (Helsinki, Edita), 102–127.
Lambert, P. & Vanhanen-Nuutinen, L. (2005) Kirjoittamisen genren kehittäminen, in: L.
Vanhanen-Nuutinen & P. Lambert (Eds) Hankkeesta julkaisuksi. Kirjoittaminen ammattikorkeakoulun ja työelämän kehityshankkeissa [From project to publication. Writing in developmental
projects of polytechnic and working life] (Helsinki, Edita), 5–20.
Lave, J. (1988) Cognition in practice: mind, mathematics and culture in everyday life (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press).
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press).
Leont’ev, A. N. (1978) Activity, consciousness and personality (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall).
Lukkarinen, T. (2005) Sairaankuljetuksen dokumentaation kehittäminen oppilaitoksen ja palolaitoksen
yhteistyönä: tavoitteena kehittävä transfer [Developing documentation of ambulance transport in
cooperation between school and work: aiming at developmental transfer]. Licentiate thesis, University of Helsinki.
Mayer, R. E. & Wittrock, M. C. (1996) Problem-solving transfer, in: D. C. Berliner & R. C.
Calfee (Eds) Handbook of educational psychology (New York, Simon & Schuster Macmillan),
47–62.
Miettinen, R. & Virkkunen, J. (2006) Learning in and for work and joint construction of mediational artifacts: an activity theoretical view, in: E. Antonacopoulou, P. Jarvis, V. Anderson, B.
Elkjaer & S. Hoeyrup (Eds) Lerning, working and living. Mapping the terrain of working life
learning (London, Palgrave), 154–169.
Murata, A., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., Gallese, V., Raos, V. & Rizzolatti, G. (1997) Object representation in the ventral premotor cortex (Area F5) of the monkey, The Journal of Neurophysiology,
78(4), 2226–2230. Available online at: http://www.unipr.it/arpa/mirror/pubs/pdffiles/MurataFadiga%201997.pdf
Packer, M. (2001) The problem of transfer; and the socio-cultural critique of schooling, The Journal
of the Learning Sciences, 10(4), 493–514.
Pea, R. D. (1987) Socialising the knowledge transfer problem, International Journal of Educational
Research, 11, 639–663.
Perkins, D. N. & Salomon, G. (1987) Transfer and teaching thinking, in: D. N. Perkings, J.
Lochhead & J. Bishop (Eds) Thinking: the second international conference (Hillsdale, NJ,
Lawrence Erlbaum), 103–119.
Singley, M. K. & Anderson, J. R. (1989) The transfer of cognitive skill (Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press).
Soini, T. (1999) Preconditions for active transfer in learning processes (Helsinki, Oy Nord Print
Ab).
Spets, A. (2006) Hanketyöpajamalli kehittävän siirtovaikutuksen välineenä ammattikorkeakoulun,
opettajakoulutuksen ja työpaikkojen yhteistyöverkostossa [The model of project workshop as promoting developmental transfer between polytechnic, teacher education and workplaces]. Research plan
for Pro Gradu Thesis (Helsinki, Department of Education, University of Lapland).
228 R. Konkola et al.
Downloaded By: [University of Utrecht] At: 19:51 10 August 2010
Star, S. L. (1989) The structure of ill-structured solutions: boundary objects and heterogeneous
distributed problem solving, in: L. Geisser & M. N. Huhns (Eds) Distributed artificial intelligence (vol.2) (San Mateo, CA, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers).
Tuomi-Gröhn, T. (2001) Kehittävä siirtovaikutus koulun ja työpaikan yhteistyön tavoitteena tapaustutkimus lähihoitajien lisäkoulutuksesta ], in: T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds)
Koulun ja työn rajavyöhykkeellä: uusia työssä oppimisen mahdollisuuksia [At the boundary-zone
between school and work: new possibilities of work-based learning] (Helsinki, University Press).
Tuomi-Gröhn, T. (2003) Developmental transfer as goal of internship in practical nursing, in: T.
Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds) Between school and work: new perspectives on transfer and
boundary crossing (Oxford, Pergamon).
Tuomi-Gröhn, T. & Engeström, Y. (2003) Conceptualising transfer: from standard notions to
developmental perspectives, in: T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds) Between school and
work: new perspectives on transfer and boundary crossing (Oxford, Pergamon).
Vygotsky, L. S. (1929) The problem of the cultural development of the child, The Pedagogical
Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology, 36(3), 415–434.