Definition
The phenomenon in which previously learned knowledge or skills affect the learning or performance of new knowledge or skills. Transfer is positive when prior learning helps the new task, and negative when prior learning interferes with it.
Plain English
What you have already learned can help you pick up something new faster, or it can get in the way and make the new thing harder. That carry-over effect is called transfer of learning.
Context Anchor
Seen in flight instructor training when discussing how a student applies an old skill to a new aircraft, maneuver, procedure, or cockpit situation.
Derivation
From Latin transferre, meaning 'to carry across.' Learning is being 'carried across' from one task or situation to another.
Why Pilots Care
Effective transfer reduces training time and improves safety by allowing pilots to apply familiar procedures to new aircraft or situations.
Grounding Statement
A student who learned one checklist flow may try to use the same flow in a different aircraft, even when the switches are not in the same place.
Intuition Check
Transfer of learning does not mean simply handing knowledge from instructor to student. Here it means earlier learning affecting later learning or performance.
Example Sentence 1
The instructor structured the syllabus so that crosswind taxi practice would produce positive transfer of learning into crosswind landings.
Example Sentence 2
Instructors must watch for negative transfer of learning when procedures from one aircraft type conflict with those of another.