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Assimilation theory (sometimes referred to as subsumption theory or theory of advance organizers) is one of the cognitivist learning theories developed by an American educational psychologist David Ausubel during 1960s. Ausubel was a cognitivist1)2) inspired by works of Jean Piaget (see: Stage Theory of Cognitive Development) and considered at the time stil influential neo-behaviorist theories inadequate3). Learning, according to Ausubel's theory, occurs through development of new cognitive structures that will hold newly acquired information. Cognitive structure is
According to Ausubel, learner's cognitive structure and its development are central to learning. He defines cognitive structure as
The cognitive structure, if well organized, enables faster learning in terms of adding new ideas and structures to it and therefore is the key aspect of learning. If cognitive structure is unorganized or badly connected, the acquisition of new information will be more difficult.
Knowledge is in assimilation theory organized hierarchically in a pyramidal shape where more general ideas and concepts appear at the top of the pyramid and get more and more specific to the bottom of it. New knowledge is assimilated in this hierarchy by anchoring to already existing more general concepts. The closer to the top of the pyramid an idea is, the more general it is and the longer is its life time.
Ausubel distinguishes between meaningful and rote learning.
Defined concept of meaningful learning leads to another key aspect of Ausubel's theory: prior knowledge. Since relating old and new knowledge is crucial for meaningful learning, prior knowledge or the existing ideas are the key enabler or restraint of what can be learned next.
As a result of a successful meaningful learning, the new idea will remain anchored to a so called subsumer. That of course doesn't mean that the learned idea can't be forgotten: this process, referred to as obliterative subsumption, happens as more specific idea becomes less and less distinctive from its subsumer until it is finally said to be forgotten.
Another important and rather controversial part of Ausubel's theory are the advance organizers: introductory material presented “in advance of the learning material itself” and “at a higher level of abstraction, generality, and inclusiveness” than the learning material7). Purpose of advance organizers is to help replace the missing concepts necessary for successful acquisition of new information by providing a link between the new material and the learner's established cognitive structure. Organizers help the learner realize where the new material fits in relation to the prior knowledge about the material.
Advance organizers should be of greater help to students with less organized cognitive structures, since organized cognitive structures already possess developed anchoring ideas. Organizers can be most productive when closely related topics or unitary topics need to be learned and when learners prior knowledge can be assessed. Advanced organizer can include various types of material like pictures, verbal descriptions, prequestioning techniques, and cultural background knowledge8). So far no significant differences in effects of this types of organizers have been reported9).
Ausubel's ideas of human cognitive structures also served as a motivation for introducing concept mapping and similar instructional materials.10)
Meaningful learning suggested by Ausubel's assimilation theory presents a valuable concept for educational process, in which rote learning examples can today be found more frequently. Foreign language learning often requires learning by heart numerous exceptions or grammatical structures (like German strong verbs). This rote learning would be easier and longer lasting in case of connecting new material with already learned language concepts. Link to known concepts (like a sentence with newly learned verb or a story composed of them) should be suggested by teachers but is often not easy to find so it remains ignored.
The concept of meaningful learning in context of Ausubel's theory has a few important implications for the instructional process:
Critics of Ausubel's theory often reflect the fact that he doesn't describe construction of organizers so different researches provide different results of their efficiency. Ausubel's theory is also in most of its claims quite opposite of Jerome Bruner's discovery learning.