ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 reviewed evidence from a century of transfer of training and differential learning research supporting the conclusion that context specificity represents an important source of variability in cognitive, learning, and psychomotor performance. This chapter extends this analysis to learning by K-12 students (i.e., kindergarten [typically age 5] through high school senior [typically ages 17-18] students) (portions of this chapter adapted from T.J. Smith [2007, 2013]). The goal is to discuss and delineate design factors in K-12 learning environments that have been shown to influence academic achievement on the part of K-12 students, a field of study termed educational ergonomics (Kao, 1976; Legg & Jacobs, 2008; Lueder & Berg Rice, 2008; K.U. Smith & Smith, 1966; T.J. Smith, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013; T.J. Smith et al., 2009; Stone, 2008). To recapitulate the debate highlighted in Chapters 1 and 3 (Goldhaber, 2012), empiricist evidence for the influence of context-designon student learning will be contrasted in this chapter with the nativist assumption that innate cognitive mechanisms account for much of the variability observed in student learning, an idea that continues to persist in educational psychology.
