Chapter 7: Theory, Level, and Function: Three Dimensions for Understanding Transfer and Student Assessment

Assessment is central to education and the study of learning. Most educational assessments measure the transfer of learning. As such, the study of transfer is broadly relevant to educational assessment, and vice versa. This chapter uses transfer as a vehicle for understanding and improving multiple forms of student assessment including classroom assessments used by teachers and external assessments such as standardized achievement tests. This also includes assessments used to measure the knowledge of individuals and to measure the effectiveness of particular learning environments. Our consideration of assessment and transfer uses a framework that consists of three interrelated dimensions.