Transfer of Learning and Habit Formation

Transfer of learning is the ability to apply knowledge or a skill learned in one situation to a new situation. Nearly all flight training relies on it: ground-school knowledge transfers to the cockpit, and trainer-aircraft skills transfer to the airplane the student eventually flies.

• Positive transfer — prior learning helps new learning. Mastering coordinated turns helps a student learn steep turns.
• Negative transfer — prior learning hinders new learning. A student trained with a yoke who switches to a stick, or one who learned an incorrect flare habit, experiences negative transfer.

You maximize positive transfer by emphasizing how skills relate, teaching general principles rather than isolated tricks, and ensuring the original learning was correct and thorough. You minimize negative transfer by teaching it right the first time (primacy again) and by clearly distinguishing maneuvers that could be confused.

The handbook stresses that the instructor's most important single responsibility is to lay a foundation of good habit patterns. Because of primacy, the habits formed early are the ones that persist under stress. A student who learns to clear the area before every maneuver, to flow a checklist, and to fly the airplane first builds habits that one day prevent an accident.

Deliberately design for transfer. When you introduce a new maneuver, explicitly connect it to ones the student already owns. When two maneuvers are easily confused — soft-field versus short-field takeoffs — teach them with enough separation and contrast that negative transfer does not set in. And guard early habit formation jealously: it is the cheapest accident prevention you will ever provide.