Another commenter mentioned that a longer study window would have been more meaningful. I agree, but for very different reasons.
Instead of making this all about "intelligence," I'd argue that, even when something is understood deeply, most people (both kids and adults) are very slow and unsteady when they think about how to apply what they know in a novel context. In other words: you can understand something deeply and fluently and STILL not have this second skill set for transfering between contexts.
So, in summary, if you want to study how able people are at transferring skills, I think you need to lengthen your study window and give people both a lot more time and space to explore and adapt to the new context.
Also, I think the ability to transfer your skills between contexts _is a separate skill_ that you need to learn, in large part, through experience. However, both work experiences and school experiences tend to stress siloing topics and skill sets to make 'test acers' and 'experts,' so very few people get to experience building a deep skill set and then transferring it to a new context early in life, if ever. As a result, honestly, I think almost everyone has a brittle understanding of almost everything they know. The exceptions are outliers. And, when you watch people (or yourself) try to do something new, usually success is, first order, a matter of how comfortable you feel trying things, failing for a bit, and slowly learning how what you know applies to the new context.
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Source: mostly first person experience. I've been teaching math for about half of my life: ~18 of ~36 years, and I still love it. :)
Also, I didn't read through all of the comments, so apologies if someone else already contributed this idea!
Instead of making this all about "intelligence," I'd argue that, even when something is understood deeply, most people (both kids and adults) are very slow and unsteady when they think about how to apply what they know in a novel context. In other words: you can understand something deeply and fluently and STILL not have this second skill set for transfering between contexts.
So, in summary, if you want to study how able people are at transferring skills, I think you need to lengthen your study window and give people both a lot more time and space to explore and adapt to the new context.
Also, I think the ability to transfer your skills between contexts _is a separate skill_ that you need to learn, in large part, through experience. However, both work experiences and school experiences tend to stress siloing topics and skill sets to make 'test acers' and 'experts,' so very few people get to experience building a deep skill set and then transferring it to a new context early in life, if ever. As a result, honestly, I think almost everyone has a brittle understanding of almost everything they know. The exceptions are outliers. And, when you watch people (or yourself) try to do something new, usually success is, first order, a matter of how comfortable you feel trying things, failing for a bit, and slowly learning how what you know applies to the new context.
___
Source: mostly first person experience. I've been teaching math for about half of my life: ~18 of ~36 years, and I still love it. :)
Also, I didn't read through all of the comments, so apologies if someone else already contributed this idea!