A Strategic Focus for Educational Leaders: The Factors that Impact Transfer of Learning

Introduction

Educational institutions face many challenges in identifying and sustaining the next generation of strategic leaders who will affect future learners. Fullan and Scott (2009) identified the criticality of developing and improving teachers’ practices through authentic, problem-based professional development (PD) programs. PD is critical for educators to stay current in the instructional best practices that improve student achievement (Barrett, Butler, & Toma, 2013; Desimone, 2009). While school, district, or state level PD offers teachers easy access to the instructional techniques that will enhance student learning, the effectiveness of these expensive programs is seldom measured (Yeh, 2009). The federal government spent $1.5 billion on K-12 teacher professional development in 2004-2005 (U.S. Department of Education, 2007). With such an investment in PD programs, the knowledge and skills gained by the participants should be justifiable from both financial and pedagogical perspectives. It becomes incumbent then that participants transfer their learning from these programs into their classroom instruction (Desimone, 2009). Often it is the responsibility of school or district administrators not only to determine the content of the PD programs, but also to evaluate whether their faculty transfers the knowledge gained from a PD program into their classroom instruction (MacDonald, 2012; Yeh, 2009). Frequently the administrators who conduct these evaluations do not have a background in measuring transfer of learning or a full appreciation of the complexity involved in transferring learning (Holton & Naquin, 2005; Hutchins, Nimon, Bates, & Holton, 2013). Understanding all the factors involved in the transfer of learning is essential in the design of PD programs. To benefit the participants and ultimately the students they serve, PD programs need to implement and promote the skills and strategies that foster learning transfer. This is an area of strategic leadership on which educational leaders need to focus to enhance their faculty’s ability to engage students in learning.

PD programs are a common method for educational institutions to develop, update, and rejuvenate their employees’ instructional skill sets (Chen, 2011; Curran, 2014; De Rijdt, Stes, van der Vleuten, & Dochy, 2013). Gaining deeper insights into how educators transfer their learning from a PD program to their classroom instruction can have both pedagogical and financial ramifications for educational institutions and school systems (Chang & Lin, 2011; Curran, 2014; Demir, 2010; De Rijdt et al., 2013; Opfer & Pedder, 2011). This is especially relevant as many American school districts are currently considering instituting merit pay for teachers based on their students’ academic performance (Ritter & Jensen 2010).