Impact of Subject Knowledge on Using Out-of-Subject Context

<p>The conception of &laquo;transfer of knowledge&raquo; as well as the frequency and context in which it appears, are the subject of both theoretical and empirical studies over the last 100 years. However, existing studies do not consider the connection between mastery level of school knowledge and the possibility of it transfer. The research aimed to study the relationship between master level of the knowledge and the ability to carry it in the &quot;out-of-subject&quot; context. The work based on the results of mathematics in the international comparative studies TIMSS (8th grade) and PISA. The sample consisted of 4384 Russian student who participated in both studies TIMSS-2011 and PISA-2012. It has been shown that the results of TIMSS can be interpreted as a general indicator of mastery level of school mathematics; and the results of PISA - as the ability to apply mathematics in out-of-subject context. Despite the fact that there is a positive relationship between the general level of mastery in school mathematics and the ability to apply it in the out-of-subject context, success in out-of-subject problems not fully explain the ability to solve school standard tasks. The sample was divided into five groups depending on the mastery level of school mathematics. Then the group of PISA items, which require knowledge of specific topics in mathematics course, were identified and the percentages of the these PISA items answered correctly were calculated. This percentage was defined as the ability to successfully transfer knowledge. The observed relationship is nonlinear: only a high mastery level of the school knowledge allows the transfer; decrease in mastery level of the subject leads to reducing capacity to transfer knowledge. These results may have both a broad theoretical meaning and also a new source of information and research hypotheses about the transfer of knowledge, but also practical - the organization of a school lesson and the overall learning program.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: <strong>transfer of knowledge, out-of-subject context, TIMSS, PISA.</strong></p>