I’ve talked about Jean Piaget before, and likely will talk about him again, but this week I wanted to talk a bit about the concept of transference and how you can apply transference (indirectly of course) through your e-learning design.
What is transference?
Transference applies to the concept of schemas; schemas are generated when we explore our environment and they help shape what we think about components of our world. Transference involves the redirection of feelings (or associations) from one object or person to another.
For example, puppies may learn to submit to another dog higher in the pack order by showing their stomachs. These puppies may also expose their stomachs when interacting with a dog of a larger size than themselves once they become adult dogs…they have transferred their knowledge, from puppyhood, of pack order behaviour and have applied it to their new situation (e.g. when I was a little dog, I submitted to the bigger dog. That dog over there is bigger than me, so I’ll submit to them).
Wow. That was a long-winded example. I’m sorry. I probably confused all yawl more.
Examples in E-Learning
Folks talk about personalization in e-learning all the time, but they rarely relate it to the idea of transference, but this is exactly what’s happening! When we have users select an avatar to represent them throughout their learning journey, we are indirectly having them apply their feelings to this avatar. This avatar IS the learner!
Video games do a good job with this. While almost all video games can fall in this category of transference, I am particularly reminded of The Sims. So many people model their sim family after how they want to see themselves. They want to live vicariously through their characters. Therefore, a lot of gamification approaches are related to transference.Very interesting, yeah? Food for thought.
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