2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

The preparation of engineering graduates for industry careers has been discussed in the engineering education literature for decades. Shifting from claims that students need more practical knowledge to arguments for a broader, theory-based education, critiques regarding what type of curriculum is better at preparing students for work have fluctuated back and forth for over a century. Despite this lack of consensus, engineering graduates continue to be hired in industry, with employment opportunities increasing in recent years. This begs the question: are students truly unprepared for work? To address this question, more research is needed to investigate the nature of the transition between academia and industry. In particular, a robust understanding of the degree to which students are translating their education into the workplace is needed. In educational psychology, the act of translating knowledge from one context to another is referred to as the transfer of learning. Oftentimes, discussions on transfer relate to the knowledge and skills that learners carry with them from one course to another. However, this paper is focused on school and work contexts, a transition which is largely unexplored with regard to transfer. The work presented herein takes the first step in addressing this gap by surveying the scholarship available pertaining to transfer. Beginning with the earliest approaches, this review presents an assortment of transfer theories that seek to explain how learners translate knowledge, skills, and attitudes between contexts. Following this review, the authors present suggestions for transfer theories that may be most appropriate for studying the transition between engineering school and work. Future research on this topic is also suggested.