Students in object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) courses typically encounter difficulties transitioning from object-oriented analysis (OOA) to logical design (OOLD). This study conducted an empirical experiment to examine these learning difficulties by evaluating differences between OOA-to-OOLD and OOLD-to-object-oriented-physical-design (OOPD) transitions from the perspective of semantic distance in the context of semantic network theory. The experimental results indicated that two factors inhibit the learning of OOA-to-OOLD transition: the semantic distance between phases and the precise degree of transition relations. The OOA-to-OOLD transition exhibits a greater semantic distance than the OOLD-to-OOPD transition, which causes difficulty in retrieving and understanding the semantics of OOA-to-OOLD transition relations. OOA-to-OOLD transition relations are less precise, which causes learners to have difficulty in developing efficient schema acquisition and automation when learning OOA-to-OOLD transition. These results provide further insight into the cognitive processes of learners who are learning phase transition. This may guide educators to develop an effective learning instruction method for phase transition and motivate researchers to remedy the inherent deficiency of phase transition in OOAD by considering the cognitive processes of developers.