The past decades have shown an accelerated development of technology-enhanced or digital education. Although an important and recognized precondition for study success, still little attention has been paid to examining how an affective learning climate can be fostered in online training programs. Besides gaining insight into the dynamics of affective learning itself it is of vital importance to know what predicts trainees’ intention to transfer new knowledge and skills to other contexts. The present study investigated the influence of five affective learner characteristics from the transfer literature (learner readiness, motivation to learn, expected positive outcomes, expected negative outcomes, personal capacity) on trainees’ pre-training transfer intention. Participants were 366 adult students enrolled in an online course in information literacy in a distance learning environment. As information literacy is a generic competence, applicable in various contexts, we developed a novel multicontextual transfer perspective and investigated within one single study the influence of the abovementioned variables on pre-training transfer intention for both the students’ Study and Work contexts. The hypothesized model has been tested using structural equation modeling. The results showed that motivation to learn, expected positive personal outcomes, and learner readiness were the strongest predictors. Results also indicated the benefits of gaining pre-training insight into the specific characteristics of multiple transfer contexts, especially when education in generic competences is involved. Instructional designers might enhance study success by taking affective transfer elements and multicontextuality into account when designing digital education.
MULTIFILE
An important goal of educational designers is to achieve long-term transfer of learning that is the learner's application of newly acquired competencies. Extensive research during more than a century shows that especially in formal educational settings this fundamental aspect of education often occurs poorly or not at all, leading to what is called a Transfer Problem. To address this transfer problem, the present study examines intentions to transfer learning to multiple contexts; this focus on multiple transfer contexts extends previous research focusing on a single transfer context, typically the workplace. The present study aimed to estimate the influence of five organizational variables (peer support, supervisor support, opportunity to use, openness to change, and feedback) on pre-training intention to transfer prospective learning in two different transfer contexts: study and work. Participants were 303 students at an open university starting a digital course in information literacy. The model was tested using structural equation modelling. The results indicated that before starting the course supervisor support and feedback were considered the strongest predictors of intention to transfer new learning in both the study and the work contexts. This research is amongst the first in the training literature to address multicontextuality and examines intentions to transfer generic competences to the two transfer contexts study and work within one single study.
MULTIFILE
