Prior learning influences the ability to learn new tasks.
Thorndike's finding, and his identical-elements theory limited it sharply: transfer occurs where the tasks share components, which is why "learning to think" through Latin did not deliver what was claimed.
In practice
- A firm that teaches its analysts chess to sharpen their thinking gets better chess players.
- Learning Latin does not make you think better, and learning one programming language does help with the next, because the second shares components and the first does not.
- Standing
- The finding that retired the doctrine of formal discipline, which held that hard subjects such as Latin train the mind in general.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- What works in learning, and what schools can and cannot change