Acquiring intellectual skills

Recent research on intellectual skill acquisition has focused on specific domains, including mathematics, physics, and history, as well as general intellectual skills and social contexts. Domain-related research has examined how learning is affected by prior knowledge. Research on general skills encompasses scientific reasoning, informal reasoning and verbal skills. Collaborative learning, situated learning and apprenticeship are major areas of research related to social contexts. Significant issues include individual differences, acquisition and transfer of general versus specific skills, the sociocultural revolution and active processing.