The transfer of learning from one situation to another situation that is…

Concept. Transfer of learning is the influence that earlier learning has on performance in a later, different situation. Educational psychology classifies it on two independent axes (Perkins & Salomon, 1988):

• Contextual distance — how closely the new situation resembles the situation in which the learning first occurred.

• Mechanism of transfer — how the carry-over actually happens: by automatic triggering of an over-practised skill, or by deliberate mental work on the part of the learner.

Application. The stem specifies that the transfer is conscious and effortful. That is a statement about the mechanism of the carry-over, not about how far apart the two situations are. On the mechanism axis, the form in which the learner deliberately abstracts a general principle out of the first situation, holds it in mind, and searches for a new situation in which it applies is called high-road transfer; its counterpart, in which a well-drilled skill fires off automatically with little thought, is low-road transfer.

Cross-check. Mapping every offered term to the axis it belongs to makes the distinction explicit:

Near and far transfer answer a different question (how similar are the two situations?), so neither can describe an effortful mechanism. Of the two mechanism terms, the deliberate, mindful one is high-road transfer — that is what conscious, effortful transfer of learning is called.