Identical Elements
Updated 2026-08-13
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Thorndike's theory of identical elements holds that learning transfers from one situation to another in proportion to the elements the two situations share. If the training context and the target context have many common components, transfer is easy; if they share little, training in one produces little improvement in the other. The qualification is that the theory emphasizes surface and procedural overlap, and it was later supplemented by accounts of transfer through general principles. Its practical use is designing training that resembles the target task.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Overlap analysis: list the elements the training situation and the target situation share. - Fidelity design: make practice conditions resemble the conditions of real performance. - Transfer test: measure performance on the target task rather than on the practice task.
Anchor fast decisions
Skills are stored as associations with the conditions in which they were learned, so a new situation retrieves the practiced response only when its cues resemble the original ones. The more elements the two contexts share, the more retrieval cues are present, which is why practice under realistic conditions transfers far better than practice under artificial ones.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_learningverified
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