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Visible Learning™
Visible Learning MetaX
Version 1.4 – Updated February 2026

Transfer strategies

Overview

  • Influence: Transfer strategies
  • Domain: Student Learning Strategies
  • Sub-Domain: Meta-cognitive/self-regulated learning
  • Potential to Accelerate Student Achievement: Potential to considerably accelerate
  • Influence Definition: For learning to be effective, students must be able to make a spontaneous, unprompted, and appropriate transfer of a learning or problem-solving strategy from one context to another. This can be near transfer to new problems similar to the instruction, or far transfer to new situations and domains.

Evidence

  • Number of meta-analyses: 5
  • Number of studies: 156
  • Number of students: 5,475
  • Number of effects: 219
  • Weighted mean effect size: 0.89
  • Robustness index: 3

Meta-Analyses

Meta-Analyses
Journal Title Author Article Name Year Published Variable Number of Studies Number of Students Number of Effects Effect Size
Report Rayner, Bernard, & Osana A Meta-Analysis of Transfer of Learning in Mathematics with a Focus on Teaching Interventions 2013 Transfer in math 53 NA 116 0.80
Book Marzano, Gaddy, & Dean What Works in Classroom Instruction 2000 Experimental inquiry 6 NA 6 1.14
Book Marzano, Gaddy, & Dean What Works in Classroom Instruction 2000 Identifying similarities and differences 51 NA 51 1.32
School Science and Mathematics Apthorp, Igel, & Dean Using similarities and differences: A meta-analysis of its effects and emergent patterns 2012 Similarities & Differences transfer 12 1,650 12 0.65
Journal of Management Blume, Ford, Baldwin, & Huang Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review 2010 Transfer on learning 34 3,825 34 0.41
TOTAL/AVERAGE 156 5,475 219 0.86
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