Transferability

Transferability is the extent to which something learned, created, or assigned in one context can be applied in another. In education and cognitive psychology, transfer of learning describes the ability to apply knowledge or skills to new tasks. Transfer can be near, sharing close similarity, or far, across domains; positive transfer aids performance, while negative transfer impedes it.

In education practice, researchers study how curricula, examples, and practice conditions influence transfer and how to design instruction to promote generalization. In economics and law, transferability refers to the ability to transfer rights, assets, or licenses across holders or contexts, such as transferable securities or property rights. In computer science, transfer learning enables a model trained on one dataset to perform on another, often with fine-tuning; transferability depends on domain similarity and representation power. In public policy and development, transferability assesses whether a program or intervention tested in one setting can be scaled or adapted to another setting.

Factors influencing transferability include the similarity of underlying structures, the level of abstraction of learned representations, variability in training conditions, and the presence of robust, generalizable strategies. Effective transfer often requires practice across multiple contexts, clear encoding of principles, and explicit connections between source and target tasks.

Measurement and evaluation involve transfer tests or performance assessments in new tasks or environments. Challenges include negative transfer, where previous learning interferes with new demands, and overfitting to a specific source domain. Related concepts include generalization, portability, domain adaptation, and knowledge transfer. Overall, transferability is a cross-cutting concept across disciplines, highlighting the ability of outcomes to cross contextual boundaries.