The facilitation of meaningful verbal learning in the classroom1

Abstract The assimilation theory of meaningful verbal learning and retention and the distinctions between rote and meaningful learning and between reception and discovery learning are reviewed in the light of some recent research on advance organizers, adjunct questions, and cognitive style. An attempt is made to reply to some of the frequently‐made criticisms of the author's research methodology in his studies of advance organizers and retroactive interference in meaningful prose learning and retention. Finally, an assessment is made of freedom of psychological inquiry in the United States and of equality of access to APA journals; and it is suggested that the neobehavioristic orientation in American school learning theory has been artificially kept alive by editorial bias on the part of APA journals, by neobehavioristic bias on the part of reviewers for research funding agencies, and by implicit pressures exerted on graduate students in educational psychology doctoral programs.