Ausubel - 1 © Andrew P. Johnson, Ph.D. This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Essential Learning Theories and Their Applications, published by Rowman and Littlefield. AUSUBEL’S THEORY OF MEANINGFUL VERBAL LEARNING Andrew P. Johnson, Ph.D. Minnesota State University, Mankato www.Readocity.com AUSUBEL’S THEORY OF MEANINGFUL VERBAL LEARNING THEORY David Ausubel’s theory of meaningful verbal learning emphasizes the importance of structure and connecting new information to known. Whereas Bruner recommended discovery learning, Ausubel identified reception learning using expository teaching as the most effective method to use in helping students construct new knowledge (Ausubel, Novak, & Hanesian, 1978). Highlights and implications of his theory are described below. • Meaningful verbal learning. According to Ausubel, meaningful verbal learning is when new knowledge is received directly from the teacher in a form in which it can be received by students (Ausubel, Novak, & Hanesian, 1978). Here, the structure of what is to be learned is clearly evident and students are able to see how new knowledge connects to what they already know. The teacher’s job then is to use expository teaching (below) to present this new information in ways that enable learners to see the structure and making these connections. • Expository teaching. Expository teaching is when the content to be learned is presented to students in its final form using direct instruction (Good & Brophy, 1995, LeFrancois, 1994). This is a transmission approach to teaching that is highly teacher-centered and lecture oriented. According to Ausubel, expository teaching is the most effective method to use for meaningful verbal learning (Ausubel, Novak, & Hanesian, 1978). • Students’ knowledge. The most important factor influencing students’ learning new knowledge is the quantity, clarity, and organization of their present knowledge (Ausubel & Robinson, 1969). The new must connect to the known for meaningful verbal learning to occur. Thus, when teaching new concepts or skills, teachers need to have a sense of what students already know. To illustrate, often college textbooks are selected by professors. By nature of their profession, professors have a vast body of knowledge related to their specialty area. It is easy to forget what it is like to grasp some of the concepts in their field for the first time. Thus, many college textbooks, including those in educational psychology, present too much information at too high a level for students encountering these concepts for the first time. The result is that there is often just as much rote learning as meaningful learning. This why this book strives to includes just the essential elements of each of the learning theory. • Organized bodies of information. For meaningful verbal learning to occur, new information must be organized hierarchically so the structure is readily apparent (Ausubel & Robinson, 1969). The structure of this new information serves two purposes: First, it acts as a scaffold to organize and hold information as students are creating or expanding cognitive structures. Students are able to see the hierarchical nature of the new information and its relationships to existing cognitive structures. Second, the structure of the new information serves as a scaffold for encoding and retrieving. Even if details are forgotten, students will be able to retrieve the basic structure and remember key ideas associated with the structure.