ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the existing theories of transfer and applies them to the context of educational television. Numerous researchers have pointed to the importance of a firm knowledge base as a prerequisite for transfer, with particular attention paid to "local knowledge" about the subject at hand. Most theories of transfer assign a central role to the learner's mental representation of the material learned. The process of transfer, focusing on children's initial comprehension of an educational television program and their mental representations of its content. Although transfer of learning does occur among young children, several aspects of development can contribute to make transfer more likely to occur as children grow older. Program characteristics, too, include those characteristics that contribute to initial comprehension of the program, as well as characteristics that pertain more directly to transfer itself. As Hall, Fisch, et al. postulated in explaining effects of Square One TV on children's use of problem-solving heuristics to solve mathematical problems.
