TRANSFER OF MENTAL ABILITIES AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF PRACTICE IN THE SOLUTION OF CONCEPT PROBLEMS
Authors: Bunderson C. Victor 
Published: August 2014

Theories of learning have typically failed to give an account of the role of human abilities, while accounts of mental abilities have not explained their relationship to learning in any rigorous way. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of a set of factor‐analytically derived ability measures to performance at different stages of practice in a learning set task employing concept problems, and to consider possible constructs to explain these relationships.

Twenty‐six problems, each of which required the identification of a four‐dimensional conjunctive concept, were administered to a sample of 145 Princeton University undergraduates. To account for the complex learning involved in this task, a conceptual model involving information‐processing constructs was developed. Three higher‐order processes were postulated: a problem analysis process, which defined gaps between information available and information needed for solution; a search process, which looked among available responses for operators to reduce or to remove these gaps; and an organization process, which integrated operators thus found into a terminal program for solving the problems.

A battery of 30 mental tests was administered to the same sample of students. The tests were selected as measures of factors chosen for their relevance to the model. The intercorrelations among the test scores were factor analyzed by a maximum‐likelihood procedure. This procedure extracted factors in accordance with a simple‐structure hypothesis set up in advance. A statistical test of this hypothesis showed it to be tenable.

Ten mental ability factors were thus defined: three reasoning factors, two flexibility factors, three memory factors, and two visual speed factors.

The relationship of performance at different stages of practice to each of the 10 factors was determined by a factor extension procedure. It was found that the abilities transferred differentially at different stages of practice.

This differential transfer was explained in terms of the postulated information processes, under the assumption that certain processes were most relevant at certain stages of practice and that abilities related to these processes would transfer at that stage of practice.

It was found that induction and flexibility factors transferred early in practice, at a time when search activities were assumed to be dominant, General reasoning transferred maximally at a later stage of practice, characterized by organizing or integrating activities.

Verbal reasoning was the most highly related of all mental abilities to early success in obtaining the correct structuring rules for both positive and negative concept examples. This superiority was most marked in the case of negative information. Maximal transfer occurred at a stage of practice prior to that found for the organizing ability, General Reasoning. These results suggested that Verbal Reasoning was related to the problem analysis process.

A new “chunking memory” factor was strongly related to learning performance, especially during early stages of practice. Transfer to solution scores from this factor occurred at an earlier stage than from Verbal Reasoning and decreased during late trials more rapidly. It was suggested that this factor reflected ability to encode and store stimuli in “buffer storage” in a form readily accessible to central processes.

Significant interactions were noted with another memory factor. Memory Span interacted with Induction and Symbolic Flexibility on number of problems solved, while Spatial Scanning interacted with Memory Span. These interactions reflected strategies selected by different subjects high and low on these abilities.

This study was seen to have implications to the problem of providing an empirical base for the construct validation of both mental tests and theories of complex human learning.