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Article published In:
Target
Vol. 24:2 (2012) ► pp.338–354

Load-managed problem formats

Scaffolding and modeling the translation task to improve transfer

| Kent State University

Does the “expert blind spot”, our “unconscious competence”, lead us to undermine the effectiveness of our translation assignments? This study characterizes the translation task as schema-based, and thus prone to cognitive overload for the learner. Accordingly, schema acquisition tasks featuring reduced-goal specificity and goal-free problems for training the novice are reviewed. The argument is put forward that we need 1) to use more scaffolding to reduce cognitive load, 2) to vary task architecture for learning (including the use of planning pre-tasks), and 3) to provide diagnostic help for the student translator to attain context-independence for ‘high road transfer’. Formats for expertise modeling are considered—reverse tasks, completion examples, and other whole-task models—as instructional designs for load-managed translation tasks that improve problemsolving, schema acquisition, process-orientation, and metacognitive monitoring.

Keywords: cognitive load (intrinsic, extraneous, germane), task design, unconscious competence, whole-task training, context-independence, scaffolding, transfer, modeling, goal-free problems
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 2.Partial tasks, whole tasks, and schema development
    • 3.Cognitive load and the ‘expert blind spot’ in translation task construction
    • 4.Transfer and context-independence
    • 5.Process-oriented information and metacognition
    • 6.Tasks for modeling expertise
      • 6.1Planning
      • 6.2Whole-task models
    • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 February 2013
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.24.2.06was
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