ABSTRACT
The past educational, employment and life experiences of students have been shown
to have a substantial impact on their ability to learn and to transfer learning (Boud
and Miller 1996). For the last eleven years, I have been teaching mature students
who have caring commitments and who are studying a DipSW programme in the
west of Scotland; this course is specifically designed to meet their needs. I have
become aware that an understanding of how students use these past experiences in
new learning is vital for social work lecturers, practice teachers and students
themselves. In this chapter, I will discuss the ways in which mature students approach
the transfer of learning and strategies that can facilitate this process. Initially, I will
examine the educational context looking at programme design and teaching
approaches. I will then discuss the placement context looking at how students
transfer learning from previous work and life experience to their practice and what
aids this transfer. I will discuss my experiences as a lecturer and tutor with this
student group and will refer to the students’ own views on the transfer of learning
as ascertained through a small-scale study of mature students with caring
commitments undertaking the programme. In this study, I interviewed ten students
who were either in the final year of the programme or had recently completed the
programme; I asked them to reflect on how they transferred learning and how their
life experiences as mature students with caring commitments affected this.
