Emily Lawrence’s First Year Writing Student Attitudes and Beliefs: The Potential For Writing Related Transfer quotes Dana Lynn Driscoll’s explanation of transfer as “the idea that knowledge gained in one area can be applied “from one context, such as first-year composition, to a new context, such as disciplinary writing.” (LawrenceE) 

But what does this mean for us? Our entire lives, we have been taught information for the purpose of scaffolding it. For those who don't know, scaffolding is the method that which we organize our learning into smaller chunks so that we can focus on one thing at a time, and aim for ideal results/comprehension. We aren’t told why, or how the information will come in handy for the future, just that we know that we need it. Oftentimes, in fact, we need to know the basic information early enough that we can learn, process, and comprehend it, and then use those skills to do the same for a higher-level task. A real-life example of this could be found in the classroom. First, you learn the basics of something, and then you will apply more complicated methods and topics in the future once you're well-versed in the basics. I believe that this is what Dana Lynn Driscoll is alluding to, but specifically in writing courses. 

This is not a new idea, however, it has been around for years, decades even. More so, professionals have diligently been trying to figure out how to best approach teaching in a way that will positively influence a student's level of transfer. First Year Writing Student Attitudes and Beliefs: The Potential For Writing Related Transfer follows a study that aims to find not only an answer to this question in reference to first-year writing courses but also to figure out an effective method to determine a student's potential transfer of course knowledge.

How can you take the writing you worked on in school, and apply it to your professional career? Can you? Emily Lawrence aims to give some insight into this idea by delving into the minds of first-year writing students, examining the thoughts and mindsets, that is, their views on their learning, of students through words used in student reflections, and examining how those factors may affect the transfer of the skills they gain from the class into others. These student reflections are individual writing assignments where students are expected to reflect on a given writing assignment that they had recently finished. How did they feel about it, what did they struggle with, what did they learn? 

The study took place at Oakland University, which is a school in Michigan. For this study, three separate student reflections (per participant) were taken and used as data. These reflections were on writing assignments that they had been doing throughout the semester, and eight students chose to participate. (LawrenceE) 

The first finding related to transfer was student engagement. The article goes on to say that “without engagement, students will not learn. This is why value and engagement were coded for this study.” (LawrenceE) But what does this mean? The study had specific keywords and or similar words and phrasing that would be closely monitored in the participant's reflections. These words were meant to represent the way that students felt about the class at the time of the assignment, the goal being that they would use words that seemed to be directly linked to successfully completing “transfer” in some capacity. Some of these words included "future," and "learn," as you will see a little later.

The study also found that “studying student reflections is an often-used method for judging learning and transfer, but reflections are not doing what prior research suggests that they do.” (LawrenceE) Here, it is being argued that student reflections may not be judging learning and transfer the way that they’re necessarily intended. The study mentions words, specifically, the word “learn.” While looking for usage of the word “learn” in the student's papers, they found a clear distinction between people who talked about learning something in the class using an example, as opposed to someone who simply mentions learning without any examples. Not only was having examples of what a student learned important, but having the ability to realize the sort of importance their work would have on their future learning and professional careers was as, if not more important. In fact, “Driscoll argues that in order to facilitate transfer, students must be able to ‘recognize situations where previous knowledge can be useful in order to successfully transfer knowledge’ (4).” (LawrenceE) According to the study, this means that students talking about the future, in reference to the work done in class, means that they are more likely to be aware of the classes importance, and therefore transfer knowledge.

One example of this that I can think of is resumes, cover letters, et cetera. In my professional communications course, we are learning about the importance of these forms of writing, and learning how to draft our own. If I can take the knowledge and examples that I've learned/made in the class, and apply them to my future job applications, that is considered a successful "transfer."  

But what does this mean for us? Whether you are reading this as a student, or a full-time worker, there is something that can be taken away. Although this study is primarily focused on first-year writing students, everybody can use this knowledge. As previously mentioned, transfer is defined as being able to take knowledge and apply it to different contexts. (LawrenceE) This means that it can apply to a real-life situation at work, or even at home, just as much as it can in your educational career. The conclusions of the study state that “while instructors and colleges can do more to help students be aware of what they are learning so the possibility of transfer increases, a lot of this weight falls on the shoulders of these students, and they do not know it.” (LawrenceE) This means that ultimately, regardless of whether a person, such as a professor, can make transferring knowledge easier, it is mostly up to us as individuals to figure out how we can take information and apply it to separate contexts. While this may seem difficult, we’ve been doing this our entire lives without thinking about it. It may not come easy in all situations, but we are all capable of better developing transfer. Maybe start reflecting on your own days at work, or your classroom assignments, you may be surprised at how much more information you’re able to retain and use. 

LawrenceE. (2022). First Year Writing Student Attitudes and Beliefs: The Potential for Writing-Related Transfer. Young Scholars in Writing, 19, 68-84. Retrieved from https://youngscholarsinwriting.org/index.php/ysiw/article/view/354