The Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge: A Cognitive View

by David Paul Ausubel

In 1963 an initial attempt was made in my The Psychology of Meaningful Verbal Learning to present a cognitive theory of meaningful as opposed to rote verbal learning. It was based on the proposition that the acquisition and retention of knowl­ edge (particularly of verbal knowledge as, for example, in school, or subject-matter learning) is the product of an active, integrative, interactional process between instructional material (subject matter) and relevant ideas in the leamer's cognitive structure to which the new ideas are relatable in particular ways. This book is a full-scale revision of my 1963 monograph, The Psychology of Meaningful Verbal Learning, in the sense that it addresses the major aforementioned and hitherto unmet goals by providing for an expansion, clarification, differentiation, and sharper focusing of the principal psychological variables and processes involved in meaningful learning and retention, i.e., for their interrelationships and interactions leading to the generation of new meanings in the individual learner. The preparation of this new monograph was largely necessitated by the virtual collapse of the neobe­ havioristic theoretical orientation to learning during the previous forty years; and by the meteoric rise in the seventies and beyond of constructivist approaches to learning theory.

228 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2000

Reviews

[Stuart Macalpine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ausubel is frequently cited in books about concept based learning by Novak, Gagne et al. and is often framed as a founding thinker of concept based learning. The text had some important and interesting observations, but was extremely dry.

Ausubel presents an argument that for meaningful learning to be effective, students need a number of conditions in place: they must have clear pre-existing concepts activated that work as an 'anchor' for new learning; they should be presented with clear, discriminated new learning in the form of an 'advance organiser' before experiencing new learning at a lower level of examples or facts; and they should come with a "learning set" (approach) that wants to integrate new concepts with existing understanding, not a learning set that would learn by rote.

Ausubel's major argument (and it is contentious) is that learning is on-the-whole deductive, not inductive, and that the 'verbal' model of learning is most effective. Ausubel insists that many people have in the past mistaken 'rote' learning as synonymous with 'verbal' learning. Ausubel argues that verbal learning can indeed be rote, and almost all rote learning is verbal in nature, but verbal learning is also very effective for concept based learning. He emphasises the importance of clarity of verbal instruction, and strong conceptual schemas that are linked to students' prior knowledge. He suggests that beyond primary school, the need for concrete experience or examples is dramatically diminished, and students can gain rich understandings from verbal instruction alone. His model is essentially entirely deductive: explain the ideas well, and let students make sense of them.

Ausubel's observations about the way that new conceptual learning is integrated with students' existing understandings is extremely interesting, and he has great expertise in the way in which 'forgetting' occurs as concepts and knowledge that is subsumed into supra-ordinate concepts lose specificity over time e.g. people will forget the particular features of an animal over time, but remember they are a mammal almost flawlessly - an example of 'obliterative subsumption'.

The text, perhaps not surprisingly given Ausubel's views on deduction, was shocking short of exemplification of ideas. Often there are pages of pure abstraction with absolutely nothing to tie it back to the real world of classrooms.

Ausubel's observations about types of learning are also very illuminating, and reflect the stages of concept based learning used today: in his terms these are word learning, concept learning and propositional learning. He is also very illuminating on the nature of rote learning, and how it occurs, and can occur even when it is not the intention of the teacher.

The major takeaways from the text for me were:
1. There are in fact strong arguments for verbal, deductive learning and it would be wrong to overlook these entirely in an enthusiasm for inductive 'constructivist' learning. Additionally his assertion that verbal learning becomes more and more important as students get older is also worth more thought and experimentation in class.

2. The idea of advance organisers is actually extremely useful - I can imagine working the transition from 'facts and opinions' (pre-TOK knowledge) to 'ways of knowing / knowledge claims' (TOK Knowledge) in the introduction to TOK much more successfully using his ideas next time I teach it.

3. Forgetting is a predictable part of all learning, and can be mitigated in various ways, and particularly in conceptual learning by being very clear with students about which ideas new learning anchors to, and exactly how the new learning is differentiated from pre-existing ideas.

Overall, a challengingly dry and abstract book, but a useful read as part of a portfolio of reading on concept based learning. I wouldn't describe it as a pleasure, but it was intellectually stimulating in parts.