The Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge: A Cognitive View

The Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge: A Cognitive View

The Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge: A Cognitive View by David P. Ausubel Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Graduate School, The City University of New York, U.S.A. SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN 978-90-481-5536-1 ISBN 978-94-015-9454-7 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-9454-7 Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

To the memory of George Richard Wendt who first introduced me in 1938 to the intellectual excitement of postulating explanatory mechanisms for the psychological processes of human learning and retention, which eventually became assimilation theory.

Alphorism for Fly-Leaf Knowledge is meaningful by definition. It is the meaningful product of a cognitive ("knowing") psychological process involving the interaction between "logically" (culturally) meaningful ideas, relevant background ("anchoring") ideas in the particular leamer's cognitive structure (or structure of his knowledge), and his mental "set" to learn meaningfully or to acquire and retain knowledge. The author

CONTENTS Preface Chapter 1. Preview of Assimilation Theory of Meaningful Learning and Retention 1 ix Chapter 2. Scope and Objectives 19 Chapter 3. Preview of Basic Concepts of Meaningful Reception Learning and Retention 38 Chapter 4. The Nature of Meaning and Meaningful Learning 67 Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Assimilation Theory in Meaningful Learning and Retention Processes 101 The Effects of Cognitive Structure Variables on the Acquisition, Retention, and Transferability of Knowledge 146 Practice and Motivational Factors in Meaningful Learning and Retention 181 vii

PREFACE 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 knowledge (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 neobehavioristic 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. It need not be thought, of course, that the acquisition and retention of knowledge are necessarily restricted to the formal instructional contexts of schools and universities, where designated teachers and pupils interact in stereotypical ways mostly for this purpose. Actually, the acquisition and retention of knowledge are pervasive and lifelong activities essential for the competent performance, efficient management, and improvement of daily work tasks. The identical psychological processes underlying the formal acquisition and retention of knowledge can also take place informally through systematic and even unsystematic reading, educational television, intellectual conversational discourse, etc. Nevertheless it is undeniable that the greatest scope for the systematic use and improvement of meaningful reception learning and retention-for acquiring and retaining knowledge-lies in the formal instructional practices of elementary and secondary schools and of colleges and universities. Tulving (1972) refers to the latter more formal kind of memory as "semantic" and to the more informal, everyday, and transient kind as "episodic." ix

x PREFACE The reasons for this difference in the primary source of what is conventionally considered "knowledge" are fairly self-evident: Semantic memory is the ideational outcome of a meaningful (not rote) learning process as a result of which new meaning(s) emerge. These new meanings are the substantive products of the interaction between potential meanings in the instructional material and the relevant "anchoring" ideas in the learner's cognitive structure; eventually they become, sequentially and hierarchically, part of an organized system, related to other similar, topical organizations of ideas (knowledge) in cognitive structure. It is the eventual coalescence of many of these sub-systems that constitutes or gives rise to a subject-matter discipline or a field of knowledge. Rote learnings, on the other hand, obviously do not add to the substance or fabric of knowledge inasmuch as their relation to existing knowledge in cognitive structure is arbitrary, non-substantive, verbatim, peripheral, and generally of transient duration, utility, and significance. Typically they (e.g., telephone numbers) have a limited, practical, and time- and energy-saving usefulness. Characteristically, semantic memories tend to be both long-term and significant because they are typically intended by the learner to become part of an existing and growing body of knowledge, and also because the meaningful learning process itself is necessarily complex and, thus, requires an extended period of time for completion. They are also usually significant because utterly trivial or frivolous snippets of information would hardly be intentionally incorporated into existing serious bodies of knowledge. Although in this book the term knowledge, in accordance with traditional usage, will be reserved for significant, long-term, meaningfully learned, and organized (as opposed to isolated or randomly distributed) memories, it should be appreciated that the opposite characteristics may sometimes prevail under certain circumstances in one or all respects. One possible but unlikely misinterpretation of this book's terminology, first appearing in the title itself, The Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge, and later throughout the text is the possible suggestion that the conventional dictionary definition of "acquisition" in a learning context implies a passive, sponge-like, mechanical, authoritarian, and uncritical ingestion of information, as an end in itself, rather than for the generation (production, construction) of viable (hierarchically-ordered and -organized subject matter) knowledge. However, in the context of this book, "acquisition" also has the more usual and general meaning (that also applies here) of "gaining possession" of new meanings (knowledge) that were not previously comprehended or were non-existent. That is, in this latter context, "acquisition" only basically implied the familiar educational furthering of the goal of "gaining possession" of new meanings as expeditiously as possible, without necessarily making any specification of whether this goal is to be accomplished by rote or by a meaningful or authoritarian, unintegrated, passive, mechanical, sponge-like learning process. However, from the context of my 1963 book, and what appears on almost every page of this current monograph, it seems very unlikely that any of the aforementioned, negative implications of the term "acquisition" for the process of learning, will not impress many readers as very credible. rather, they will probably regard

PREFACE xi assimilation theory as involving primarily one particular kind of interactional meaningful learning process, closely related to the major theses of the constructivist movement; and the term "acquisition" in the title as merely indicative of general concern with achieving and promoting the goal of enhancing meaningful learning in school and academic-like settings in assimilating subject matter. It will almost certainly not be justifiably related in any credible way to the dictionary definition of "acquisition" as a theory of meaningful learning. One possible weakness of the so-called "constructivist" position is that the learner's generation of new meanings which he purportedly "constructs" from the interaction between presented and related potential meanings in the latter's cognitive structure. This view seems to oversimplify and ignore somewhat the constraints and negative influences exerted by illusory relevances, misconceptions, subjective biases, motivational orientation to learning, cognitive style, and personality traits that enter involuntarily into the "constructive process." In conclusion it can be said that the title of this current book refers primarily to the overriding and familiar educational goal and expected end-product of a consistent program of meaningful learning and master of hierarchically organized bodies of knowledge. There is little or no justification for the gratuitous assumption that the title refers to an outworn process of rote instruction and learning based on passive, authoritarian, sponge-like, and mechanical approaches to the learning of subject matter. Various cognitive structure variables (the availability, specificity, clarity, stability, and discriminability of these relevant ideas), reflective of what learners already know, and of how well they know it, were considered in the 1963 volume to be the principal cognitive variables influencing the acquisition and retention of subjectmatter knowledge. Additionally, for the sake of completeness, such other cognitive variables as practice, review, instructional materials, motivational factors, and developmental changes in cognitive capacity to handle verbal abstractions were also considered. Further, a brief critique of the indications for, and limitations of, discovery learning was offered, and the role and mechanisms of influence of motivational vis-a.-vis cognitive variables were evaluated. In the present revised edition, however, it was deemed more important to focus almost exclusively on the underlying Assimilation Theory, i.e., on processes and mediating mechanisms of meaningful reception learning and retention and on the cognitive and motivational-affective variables that impinge on them positively and negatively. Cognitive structure variables, as indicated earlier (for example, the availability in cognitive structure of relevant anchoring ideas, their stability, clarity, and discriminability from related internalized ideas and from ideas in the instructional materials) were originally regarded as the most important proximate factors influencing the meaningful learn ability and the degree of learning and retention of new, potentially meaningful instructional materials; hence, since they still are still largely so considered, they necessarily occupy a central place in the content of this book.

xii PREFACE The chapter on instructional materials, however, was deleted because of its overly specialized and technical nature. The chapters on developmental, practice, and motivational factors were nevertheless retained, because of their saliency as determinants of meaningful reception learning and retention and, thus, because of their obvious importance for the acquisition and retention of subject-matter knowledge that is gained in classrooms and similar learning environments. Also eliminated from the present book was the chapter on discovery learning which is no longer the "hot issue" that it was in 1963. In the interim many teachers and educators have become disillusioned in regard to its potentiality for single-handedly rescuing education from most of its perennial problems. Thus, in addition to the fact that discovery learning per se is not basic to the theory of meaningful learning and retention, a thoroughgoing critique of its theoretical rationale and underlying assumptions is no longer needed or relevant. Although glowing research reports and theoretical articles on discovery learning continue to appear from time to time in the educational psychology and instructional research journals, the frequency of this occurrence has been steadily decreasing. In addition, the rationale for the exaggerated interactional claims of the discovery researchers have become increasingly less polemical, tending to limit themselves more to the laboratory aspects of empirical psychological science and to experimental demonstrations of scientific method. This approach also tends to attract educational "rebels" to its banners. On the other hand, Dewey's Learning by Doing reform movement in instructional methodology is still very much alive, but its theoretical rationale has very little in common with that of discovery learning. Doing is obviously not the same as independent discovery or even as assisted discovery, in the learning process, rote or meaningful, and also depends variably on mechanical intelligence and manual dexterity. A chapter on cognitive development and readiness, included in the 1963 edition, was also not retained" in the present edition because that chapter does not deal directly (or even indirectly) with the processes and mechanisms of meaningful learning and retention. It is concerned rather with a parallel examination of changes in developmental cognitive capacity, i.e., changes that exert a profound influence both on meaningful learning and retention and on a student's readiness at a given age or level of cognitive maturity for learning particular subject-matter material. Developmental readiness is often confused by teachers and students with the kinds of readiness that reflect the possession of that particular antecedent knowledge and/or subject-matter sophistication that is necessary for learning new sequentially-dependent instructional material. During the intervening years since the appearance of the 1963 edition, the burgeoning of theoretical and research interest in cognitive approaches to learning and retention, in newly evolved elaborations and modifications of the author's original theoretical views, and in the availability of complete textbooks of educational psychology considering all significant variables affecting meaningful learning (in-

PREFACE xiii cluding discovery learning); in the unprecedented attempt by Novak to ascertain an individual's organization of his cognitive structure by using his (Novak's) original technique of "cognitive mapping"; and the use of Assimilation Theory by several national departments of education in Latin America, as the theoretical basis for reforming both the curriculum and prevailing teaching methods, have all indicated the advisability of preparing a revised version of the 1963 monograph that would focus principally on the basic theory of meaningful reception learning and retention itself, i.e., on Assimilation Theory, including the nature of meaning; the conditions and processes of meaningful reception learning and retention; on cognitive structure and the developmental variables that influence it; on the relationships between the acquisition of knowledge (new meanings), on the one hand, and their retention, transfer, and forgetting, as well as the nature of and differences between the various kinds of meanings comprising subject-matter knowledge. An entirely new feature of the present edition is the inclusion of an extended preview of the basic theoretical aspects the book as a whole that comprises all of the first chapter. It is intended as a general introduction and orientation to the interweaving theoretical views expressed in this edition, particularly Assimilation Theory and its various applications. It should not, however, be regarded as an advance organizer for which didactic device there are very definite criteria that are delineated and discussed in later chapters. The reader will, therefore, hopefully focus in this orienting first chapter on the various more general aspects of the conditions, categories, and underlying processes of meaningful learning and retention, how they differ from their rote counterparts, and how they interact with cognitive structure, practice, motivational, developmental, and readiness variables, before he becomes too deeply immersed in the detailed functional aspects of these complex psychological processes. Thus, by mastering (or at least becoming thoroughly familiar with) this basic but telescoped previous of the whole before grappling with all of its complex and sometimes confusable separate parts, it is hoped that he can at least avoid some of the common learning experience of inability to see the forest for the trees, and that the overarching explanatory ideas of this book will maintain their continuity and theoretical thrust throughout. It is strongly recommended, therefore, that the reader first peruse the entire preview (all of Chapter I), as quickly as he can do so with adequate understanding, in order to obtain a general impression of the book's subject matter as a whole, of its major theoretical thrusts and approach, and of the relationships between the separate parts of Assimilation Theory, both to each other and to the latter central theory itself. Then, before carefully and seriously reading each of the special chapters, it would probably be helpful if he read the corresponding abbreviated preview section in Chapter 1. The promise of the cognitive approach to school (subject-matter) learning and to the acquisition, retention, and organization of knowledge in the leamer's cognitive structure has been amply fulfilled since the publication of The Psychology of Meaningful Verbal Learning in 1963. Literally hundreds of research studies and dissertations on such related variables as advance organizers, integrative reconciliation, progressive differentiation, sequential organization of subject matter, review,

xiv PREFACE overlearning, and the consolidation of learning, etc. have been conducted in a meaningfullearning context (i.e., using potentially meaningful verbal learning material). What still remains to be done research-wise and educationally is (1) more long-term research on the acquisition and retention of entire courses of study and of sequentially-graded curricula over different age levels of students; and (2) the application of such findings to the curriculum and to instructional practices and materials. Some of the latter research is already under way in such countries as Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, and The Netherlands. It is now apparent to most students of the higher mental processes and of educational psychology that cognitive approaches (recognizing the role of the student's existing cognitive structure in acquiring, retaining, organizing, and transferring new meanings) are now being applied to such areas in school learning as mastery learning, concept acquisition, problem solving, creativity, thinking, and judgment. The rapid decline of neobehaviorism, first abroad (where it never took serious root in the first place) and somewhat later in the United States, where it first originated, is now an established fact of life both in American experimental psychology and in educational psychology. It has been accompanied by a corresponding diminution in the number of rote learning research studies and dissertations in school learning and related areas and in the virtual disappearance of teaching machines and operant reinforcement approaches to classroom teaching. Another parallel trend alluded to earlier, reflecting the new interest in meaningful reception learning through appropriate expository teaching and instructional materials, has been the decline in "learning by discovery" approaches, "process learning," "inquiry learning," etc. This latter trend has been accompanied by an upsurge of interest in epistemological factors in learning. For it is now generally appreciated that what is really knowable depends just as much on the nature, extensity, and limitations of human cognitive processes and capacities, and on their development over the life span, as on the objective nature of what humans seek to know, on its knowability, and on the methodology of acquiring such knowledge (epistemology, scientific method). Accordingly, in this book some consideration in a general sense is also given to (1) the relationship between bodies of knowledge, as represented by scholarly consensuses in a given discipline (e.g., textbooks, monographs, research studies) and how such knowledge is represented and organized in the cognitive structures of particular scholars and students, and (2) how this relationship changes as a function of intellectual maturity (age-level changes in information processing), and subject-matter sophistication. The observant and discerning reader with a good memory may possibly be somewhat surprised by the degree of redundancy he encounters in this book. This redundancy, however, is more intentional than it is accidental. It largely reflects the author's strongly intuitive but empirically unconfirmed belief that the substance of a given idea is maximally strengthened in memory if it is discussed in whatever contexts for which it is relevant rather than receiving consideration only the first time and in the first place in which it appears in the text. Multi-contextual repetition

PREFACE xv of an idea, in other words, hypothetically consolidates it more in memory than does multiple repetitions within the same context. Multi-contextual redundancy is embraced so vigorously and unequivocally in this monograph partly because of Hull's* highly convincing experimental findings on concept formation and partly because American textbooks and university lecturers seem to avoid redundancy of any kind completely, and seemingly so compulsively, as if not doing so represented the violation of a sacred point of honor with them. Redundancy is perhaps the earliest pedagogical and psychological device that teachers have used to facilitate meaningful (as well as rote) verbal learning. The rationale for this practice was simple but effective: Randomly- or even naturally- and meaningfully-arranged identical sequences are typically seldom repeated often enough, in uncontrived situations, and in close enough proximity, for students to appreciate that their components were related to each other in a particular way, and scored as "right" and "wrong" by the teacher. In time this device, known as "drill," although frequently derogated as rote an mechanical (mindless), became a standard and accepted instructional technique and part of every teacher's pedagogic armamentarium for enhancing learning. The pedagogic practice of drill, however, came into general disrepute among many educators when "learning by doing" and discovery approaches were popularized. This early multi-contextual variant of simple redundancy, namely "drill," not only enhances learning the target task as a result of the leamer's exposure to the multicontextual trials, but also simultaneously differentiates this learning task from other similar and competing concept formation tasks. Some readers might also be somewhat surprised by the preponderance of older references cited in the text of this monograph. This fact, however, reflects the much greater influence on the development and content of Assimilation Theory of such historical and current movements in psychology as Structuralism, Functionalism, Gestalt Psychology, and certain aspects of Schema Theory (Bartlett) and Cognitive Psychology, than of such other opposing psychological movements as Neobehaviorism, Information Processing, Cybernetics, Computer Models, and Associative and Semantic Network formulations. The latter theoretical trends also dealt more in practice with rote rather than with the meaningful aspects of learning and retention and were generally more recent in origin than the former theories. It was considered, both historically and substantively, more abundantly relevant, therefore, to cite the theoretical ideas and research evidence of the former ideational movements because of their much closer theoretical relationship to meaningful reception learning and retention. It was regarded as more relevant and helpful to the historically-interested reader to possibly implement this above-described policy of citing references than to generate a spurious impression of up-to-dateness by citing many more recent and current references that actually have much less bearing on Assimilation Theory. * Hull, C. L. Principles of Behavior. New York: Appleton-Century, 1943.

xvi PREFACE A note of caution is indicated in tracing and qualifying historically the theoretical trends delineated above. Much of the recent shift from neobehavioristic to cognitive approaches, both in experimental and educational psychology and in learning theory, is more apparent than real. A good deal of what passes these days as cognitive theory really deals more with perceptual phenomena, or is either neobehavioristic doctrine clothed in cognitive terminology or pseudocognitive theory couched in terms of underlying mechanistic (neobehavioristic) assumptions. The ineluctable American penchant for empiricism as an end in itself and for reductionistic, mechanistic, neurophysiological, and behavioristic approaches to psychological theory is much too strongly rooted in American academic psychology for neobehaviorism quietly to leave the field completely without first embracing some such transitionally reductionistic philosophy of science. It does this easily while rejecting truly cognitive versions of meaningfulleaming and retention processes for the acquisition and retention of knowledge. I am indebted to Susan Davison for careful and accurate typing of the manuscript and preparation of the camera-ready copy of this book, and to my wife, Gloria, for imaginative coordination of its several parts and sources. David P. Ausubel, M.D., Ph.D. Port Ewen, N.Y. January, 1999