Transfer of learning

An effect of learning or training on performance beyond the practised activity. The similarity of the new task, its stimuli, procedures and representations determines how strong a generalisation claim is warranted.

Improvement in substantially different tasks or domains, such as academic attainment after isolated working memory exercises. Randomised comparisons with credible active controls and prespecified outcome measures make the claim more informative.

Improvement in an untrained activity closely resembling the trained tasks. It can demonstrate more than memorisation of particular items without establishing improvement in distant educational outcomes.