Meaningful Reception Learning Theory

Ausubel's Meaningful Reception Theory is concerned with how students learn large
amounts of meaningful material from verbal/textual presentations in a school setting.
Ausubel proposed that learning is based upon the kinds of superordinate,
representational, and combinatorial processes that occur during the reception of
information. A primary process in learning is subsumption in which new material is
related to relevant ideas in the existing cognitive structure on a non-verbatim basis.
Meaningful learning results when new information is acquired by linking the new
information in the learner's own cognitive structure.
A major instructional mechanism proposed by Ausubel is the use of advance organizers.
Ausubel emphasizes that advance organizers are different from overviews and summaries
which simply emphasize key ideas and are presented at the same level of abstraction and
generality as the rest to the material. Organizers help to link new learning material with
existing related ideas.
Ausubel indicates that his theory applies only to reception (expository) learning in school
settings. He distinguishes reception learning from rote and discovery learning. Rote
learning does not involve subsumption and discovery learning requires the learner to
discover information through problem solving.
Ausubel believed that children have a natural tendency to organize information into a
meaningful whole. Children should first learn a general concept and then move toward
specifics.
Principles of Ausubel's Meaningful Reception Learning Theory within a classroom
setting include:
1. The most general ideas of a subject should be presented first and then
progressively differentiated in terms of detail and specificity.
2. Instructional materials should attempt to integrate new material with previously
presented information through comparisons and cross-referencing of new and old
ideas.
3. Instructors should incorporate advance organizers when teaching a new concept.
4. Instructors should use a number of examples and focus on both similarities and
differences.
5. Classroom application of Ausubel's theory should discourage rote learning of
materials that can be learned more meaningfully.
6. The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already
knows.