Contextual Transfer in Adventure

Contextual Transfer

Having the ability to transfer skills is important not just in adventure but in any given situation will benefit any individual, by them using different experiences to shape new experiences, whether it be within the environment or within everyday life.

Priest and Gass (1997) state that transfer is a key concept when it comes to facilitation, it shows the transmission of learning in the outdoors to everyday life. Providing the learners with effective and useable transferable abilities will be of most importance to the facilitator when it comes to adventure education. However, some of the environments have different characteristics in terms of adventure and won’t allow a positive transfer, this could be through family life, job roles or even school.

Gass (1985) identified that there are three different types of learning transfer, specific transfer, nonspecific transfer and metaphoric transfer.

1.       Specific transfer – This refers to the learner taking the habits acquired in a previous skill and apply them to a new similar skill

2.       Nonspecific transfer – This refers to the learner generalizing the common principles of a previously learned skill from a previous experience and transfer them into the new different situation

Metaphoric transfer – This refers to the strong similarity between adventure activities and everyday skills, the key to metaphoric transfer is how closely connected the two are connected with each other  

Bacon (1983) states that for metaphoric transfer to occur there needs to be some kind of isomorphism between the situation and the real life situation, making sure that they are symbolically identical. This could flag up issues within metaphoric transfer being misunderstood by the learners, so the facilitators will have to make sure they state the correct information and give the correct feedback to the learners. Priest and Gass (1997) state that there is a link between adventure activities and everyday life experiences, this comes in the form of making that first initial step, whether it be in sky diving, the first jump or in everyday life by starting a brand new job and talking to new people.  

Ewert (1983) designed the ‘black box theory’ of adventure programming and within he stated that ‘We know something works, but we don’t know how or why’. Allison (1999) finds that there are three different categories that are there to help us clarify what we think and they involve an input -> process -> output in order to get the learners to understand what they need to be doing/know what they have done. We don’t know what or why the process works, is it the facilitator, the student, the activity or the environment? Personally I believe that it is the role of the facilitator which is the most beneficial towards the learners. Without the facilitator providing information and feedback, the leaners will not know what is going on, and not know what skills can be transferred throughout different skills and into everyday life. Priest and Gass (1997) portray 6 different styles of facilitation that are used in the adventure world till this day. These styles vary from getting the learners to learn through doing, learn though telling and learning through reflection.

Reflecting is one of the main ways that a learner can apply the metaphoric transfer into everyday life, as they are able to make sense of the experience to develop new and exciting learning skills. The facilitator will need to help and guide the learners through the situation by going over and reviewing with them so that they can transfer skills that they have just learned into different skills. By doing this is can create a better environment for the learners to progress and develop as individuals. However, the learners will have to have then want/need to learn and develop their newly learned skills from adventure and place them into everyday life, as a facilitator can’t physically do everything for the learners.  

 References

Allison, P. (1999). Post residential syndrome – Research from the ground up. Paper presented at Experiencing the Difference Conference, Brathay Hall Trust, Cumbria, UK.

Bacon, S (1983). The conscious use of metaphor in Outward Bound Denver, CO: Colorado Outward Bound School.

Ewert, A. (1983). Outdoor adventure and self-concept: A research analysis. Eugene, OR: Center of Leisure Studies, University of Oregon.

Gass, M. A. (1985). Programming the Transfer of Learning in Adventure Education. Journal of Experiential Education, 8(3), 18-24.

Priest, S., & Gass, M. A. (1997). Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming. Champaign, US: Human Kinetics. P174-187.