The Effects of Organizers on the Learning of Structured Anthropology Materials in the Elementary Grades

David P. Ausubel, in his theory of meaningful, verbal reception learning, espouses the presentation of appropriate subsumers (organizers) to students prior to the presentation of the learning task. The question to be answered in the present study was: Are there significant differences in learning when students are presented organizers before the learning passages (pre-organizers), after the learning passages (post-organizers), or when they are presented only the learning passages (no-organizers). An analysis of covariance, using reading vocabulary achievement as the covariate, was used to compare adjusted treatment group means. No significant differences were found among adjusted means (p<. 15) in the available pool of third- and sixth-grade classes. Organizers do not facilitate learning when presented to similar classes using similar social studies materials.