Toward mastering foreign-language translations: transfer between productive and receptive learning

Learners can study foreign language-English vocabulary (e.g., denken - to think) both receptively and productively. Receptive learning involves being cued with a foreign language word (e.g., denken) and trying to translate it (i.e., to think). Productive learning involves being cued with an English word (e.g., to think) and trying to produce the translation. When students use retrieval practice to learn foreign-language translations in one direction (e.g., receptively) until they correctly recall the translation, do they demonstrate transfer in the other direction (i.e., productively)? Across three experiments, we answered this question by manipulating the order of learning schedule (reception first followed by production or vice versa). For a given schedule, participants continued to practice retrieving translations (with feedback) using the dropout method until they correctly recalled each translation three times; they then proceeded to practice the pairs in the opposite direction until they correctly recalled each translation three times. Across all experiments, transfer was partial (learning in one direction did not entirely eliminate the need to practice in the other), but transfer did occur regardless of which schedule students used first during practice.

Durable Learning Strategies in Nursing Education: State-of-the-Evidence Review

BACKGROUND

Health professions (HP) students must achieve durable learning (DL) to transfer and apply knowledge from the classroom to the clinical setting. This review examines the state of the science of classroom-based DL in HP.

METHOD

The Joanna Briggs Systematic Review Methodology was used. MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and ERIC databases were searched for articles published from 2006 to 2022. A total of 2,000 titles were identified for review, with 51 studies being selected for inclusion.

RESULTS

Multiple classroom-based learning strategies generally reported as being effective were identified, including flipped classroom, educational technology, spaced learning, team-based learning, concept mapping and schema, testing, and case study and problem-based learning.

CONCLUSION

Although DL has been proven to be effective in the classroom setting for HP, no one type has been shown to be more effective than others. Additional research is needed within the context of transferring knowledge to clinical settings and in nursing education. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(1):24-31.].

Integrating cognition in the laboratory with cognition in the real world: the time cognition takes, task fidelity, and finding tasks when they are mixed together

It is now possible for real-life activities, unfolding over their natural range of temporal and spatial scales, to become the primary targets of cognitive studies. Movement toward this type of research will require an integrated methodological approach currently uncommon in the field. When executed hand in hand with thorough and ecologically valid empirical description, properly developed laboratory tasks can serve as model systems to capture the essentials of a targeted real-life activity. When integrated together, data from these two kinds of studies can facilitate causal analysis and modeling of the mental and neural processes that govern that activity, enabling a fuller account than either method can provide on its own. The resulting account, situated in the activity's natural environmental, social, and motivational context, can then enable effective and efficient development of interventions to support and improve the activity as it actually unfolds in real time. We believe that such an integrated multi-level research program should be common rather than rare and is necessary to achieve scientifically and societally important goals. The time is right to finally abandon the boundaries that separate the laboratory from the outside world.