Abstract
Meaningful reception learning primarily involves the acquisition of new meanings from presented learning material. It requires both a meaningful learning set and the presentation of potentially meaningful material to the learner. The latter condition, in turn, presupposes (1) that the learning material itself can be nonarbitrarily (plausibly, sensibly, and nonrandomly) and nonverbatimly related to any appropriate and relevant cognitive structure (i.e., possesses “logical” meaning) and (2) that the particular learner’s cognitive structure contains relevant anchoring ideas to which the new material can be related. The interaction between potentially new meanings and relevant ideas in the learner’s cognitive structure gives rise to actual or psychological meanings. Because each learner’s cognitive structure is unique, all acquired new meanings are perforce themselves unique.
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Ausubel, D.P. (2000). Preview of Assimilation Theory of Meaningful Learning and Retention. In: The Acquisition and Retention of Knowledge: A Cognitive View. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9454-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9454-7_1
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