David Ausubel

David Paul Ausubel (19182008) was an American 2 Inuences

psychologist born in New York. His most signicant contribution to the elds of educational psychology, cognitive Ausubel was inuenced by the teachings of Jean Piaget.
science, and science education learning was on the devel- Similar to Piagets ideas of conceptual schemes, Ausubel
opment and research on advance organizers[1] since 1960. related this to his explanation of how people acquire
knowledge. David Ausubel theorized that people acquire[d] knowledge primarily by being exposed directly
to it rather than through discovery (Woolfolk et al.,
2010, p. 288)[6] In other words, Ausubel believed that un1 Biography
derstanding concepts, principles, and ideas are achieved
through deductive reasoning.[6]
He was born on October 25, 1918 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York.[2] He was grandson of the Jewish histo- Similarly, he believed in the idea of meaningful learning as opposed to rote memorization. In the preface to
rian Nathan Ausubel.
his book Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View, he
He studied at the University of Pennsylvania where he
says that If [he] had to reduce all of educational psygraduated with honors in 1939, receiving a bachelors
chology to just one principle, [he] would say this: The
degree majoring in Psychology. Ausubel later gradumost important single factor inuencing learning is what
ated from medical school in 1943 at Middlesex Univerthe learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him
sity where he went on to complete a rotating internship
accordingly (Ausubel, 1968, p. vi)[7] Through his belief
at Gouveneur Hospital, located in the lower east side
of meaningful learning, Ausubel developed his theory of
of Manhattan, New York.[2] Following his military seradvance organizers.
vice with the US Public Health Service, Ausubel earned
his M.A. and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from
Columbia University in 1950.[2] He continued to hold a
3 Advance organizers
series of professorships at several schools of education.
In 1973, Ausubel retired from academic life and devoted
himself to his psychiatric practice. During his psychiatric
practice, Ausubel published many books as well as articles in psychiatric and psychological journals. In 1976,
he received the Thorndike Award from the American
Psychological Association for Distinguished Psychological Contributions to Education.[2]

An advance organizer is information presented by an instructor that helps the student organize new incoming
information.[8] This is achieved by directing attention to
what is important in the coming material, highlighting relationships, and providing a reminder about relevant prior
knowledge.[6]
Advance organizers make it easier to learn new material
of a complex or otherwise dicult nature, provided the
following two conditions are met:

In 1994, at the age of 75, Ausubel retired from professional life to devote himself full-time to writing. He
then published four books:[2] Ego development and Psychopathology (1996), The Acquisition and Retention of
Knowledge (2000), Theory and Problems of Adolescent
Development (2002) and Death and the Human Condition
(2002), in the last of which he wrote about the psychology
of death and impressed his own personal psychological,
theological and philosophical thoughts on the nature and
implications of the afterlife.[3] In this book, Ausubel conceptualized death from the perspective of both Christian
believers and non-believers. He wrote that the relevance
and value of faith should certainly noy be derogated or
treated pejoratively, as atheists, agnostics, and rationalists tend to do.[4]

1. The student must process and understand the information presented in the organizerthis increases the eectiveness of the organizer itself.[6]
2. The organizer must indicate the relations among the
basic concepts and terms that will be used.[6]

3.1 Types
Ausubel distinguishes between two kinds of advance organizer: comparative and expository.

He died on July 9, 2008.[5] Ausubel and his wife Pearl 1. Comparative Organizers
The main goal of comparative organizers is to activate
had two children, Fred and Laura Ausubel.
1

existing schemas. Similarly, they act as reminders to

bring into the working memory of what you may not realize is relevant.[6] By acting as reminders, the organizer
points out explicitly whether already established anchoring ideas are nonspecically or specically relevant to
the learning material (Ausubel & Robinson, 1969, p.
146).[9] Similarly, a comparative organizer is used both
to integrate as well as discriminate. It integrate[s] new
ideas with basically similar concepts in cognitive structure, as well as increase[s] discriminability between new
and existing ideas which are essentially dierent but confusably similar (Ausubel, 1968, p. 149).[7]

REFERENCES

In a response to critics, Ausubel defends advance organizers by stating that there is no one specic example in constructing advance organizers as they always depends on
the nature of the learning material, the age of the learner,
and his degree of prior familiarity with the learning passage (Ausubel, 1978, p. 251).[10]

Another criticism of Ausubels advance organizers is that

the critics often compare the idea of advance organizers with overviews. However, Ausubel has addressed
that issue in saying that advance organizers dier from
overviews in being relatable to presumed ideational content in the learners current cognitive structure (Ausubel,
An example of a comparative organizer would be one 1978, p. 252).[10]
used for a history lesson on revolutions. This organizer Thirdly, critics also address the notion of advance orgamight be a statement that contrasts military uprisings nizers on whether they are intended to favour high ability
with the physical and social changes involved in the In- or low ability students. However, Ausubel notes that addustrial Revolution (Woolfolk et al., 2010, p. 289).[6] vance organizers are designed to favour meaningful learnFurthermore, you could also compare common aspects ing.. (Ausubel, 1978, p. 255).[10] Therefore, to question
of other revolutions from dierent nations.
whether advance organizers are better suited for high or
low ability students is unrelated as Ausubel argues that
In contrast, expository organizers provide new knowl- advance organizers can be catered to any student to aid
them in bridging a gap between what they already know
edge that students will need to understand the upcoming
information (Woolfolk et al., 2010, p. 289).[6] Exposi- and what they are about to learn.
tory organizers are often used when the new learning material is unfamiliar to the learner. They often relate what
the learner already knows with the new and unfamiliar 4 References
materialthis in turn is aimed to make the unfamiliar
[1] Advance organizers
material more plausible to the learner.
2. Expository Organizers

An example which Ausubel and Floyd G. Robinson provides in their book School Learning: An Introduction To
Educational Psychology is the concept of the Darwinian
theory of evolution.[9] To make the Darwinian theory of
evolution more plausible, an expository organizer would
have a combination of relatedness to general relevant
knowledge that is already present, as well as relevance
for the more detailed Darwinian theory.[9]

[2] Ausubel, D.P. David Ausubel. Retrieved June 9, 2010,

from http://www.davidausubel.org/

Essentially, expository organizers furnish an anchor in

terms that are already familiar to the learner.[7]

[6] Woolfolk, A.E., Winne, P.H., Perry, N.E., & Shapka, J.

(2010). Educational Psychology (4th ed). Toronto: Pearson Canada. ISBN 978-0-205-75926-2

Another example would be the concept of a right angle

in a mathematics class. A teacher could ask students to
point out examples of right angles that they can nd in
the classroom.[6] By asking students to do this, it helps
relates the students present knowledge of familiar classroom objects with the unfamiliar concept of a 90 degree
right angle.

3.2

Criticism

The most persuasively voiced criticism of advance organizers is that their denition and construction are vague
and, therefore, that dierent researchers have varying
concepts of what an organizer is and can only rely on
intuition in constructing one-- since nowhere, claim the
critics, is it specied what their criteria are and how they
can be constructed (Ausubel, 1978, p. 251).[10]

[3] Ausubel, David. 2002. Death and the Human Condition.

iUniverse. (Preface). ISBN 9780595231973
[4] Ausubel, David. 2002. Death and the Human Condition.
iUniverse. p. 46
[5] http://www.davidausubel.org/

[7] Ausubel, D.P. (1968). Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
[8] Mayer, Richard E. Learning and Instruction. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill, 2003. ISBN 978-0-13-0983961]
[9] Ausubel, D.P., Robinson, F.G. (1969). School Learning:
An Introduction To Educational Psychology. New York:
Holt, Rinehart & Winston. ISBN 978-0-03-076705-0
[10] Ausubel, D. (1978). In defense of advance organizers:
A reply to the critics. Review of Educational Research,
48(2), 251-257.

Ausubel, D.P. (1960). The use of advance organizers in the learning and retention of meaningful
verbal material. Journal of Educational Psychology,
51, 267-272.

3
Ausubel, D. (1963). The Psychology of Meaningful
Verbal Learning. New York: Grune & Stratton.
Ausubel, D. (1978). In defense of advance organizers: A reply to the critics. Review of Educational
Research, 48, 251-257.
Ausubel, D., Novak, J., & Hanesian, H. (1978). Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View (2nd Ed.).
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

verication needed for Ausubels study

at NYU. (per personal website has PhD
from Columbia).

External links
Subsumption Theory (D. Ausubel)
Advance Organizers
Ausubel Homepage
Ausubel obituary information

6 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1

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David Ausubel Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%20Ausubel?oldid=636919732 Contributors: Kku, Klemen Kocjancic, D6,

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6.2

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6.3

Content license

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