The Road to Transfer: Concept and Context Approaches to the Subject of Economics in Secondary School

In this study we investigated the effects of two forms of instruction: strengthening concepts and strengthening the ability to connect context with concepts. Although students may have acquired a reasonable amount of conceptual knowledge as a result of economics courses, two obstacles may prevent them from achieving transfer. One obstacle is a lack of a rich conceptual network; another is the inability to make connections between the conceptual network and realistic problems. The aim of this study was to find out what contributes most to the ability to transfer: strengthening conceptual knowledge or strengthening the making of connections. Some 139 students of the pre-final year of pre-university education participated in an experiment with two conditions and with a pre-test and a post-test. All students performed significantly better on the post-test in which conceptual knowledge was measured compared to the pre-test. No significant differences were measured between the two instructions on the post-test on transfer. We concluded that making connections is a difficult skill for students to learn. Context directed instruction definitively supports student’s knowledge of concepts.