Meaningful Learning Theory, we build meaning every time we establish substantive rather than arbitrary relationships between the study material and existing knowledge. When students encounter new material they approach it from a series of concepts and representations acquired from previous experiences. These experiences are used as instruments of interpretation that partially determine what information the students will absorb, how they will organize the information, what types of relationships they will establish among the pieces of information, what problem-solving techniques they will use, and so on. Ausubel argues that when discipline is taught, it fundamentally transmits this conceptual structure to the students. The appropriation of complex structures of knowledge implies an understanding of them, and that understanding cannot be reached only by routine procedures.
New information is assimilated into existing conceptual hierarchies in the cognitive structure.
In the psychological structure, a related process of integrative reconciliation occurs that allows knowledge to relate to the discipline and modify preconceptions or misconceptions, thus reducing fragmentation and making possible a reflective and critical attitude. The existing structure of knowledge influences the capacity to interpret reality and to take part in it. The capacity to approach and solve problems depends on the density of meanings in the existing structure of knowledge. There will be dominant areas in which the effect from an experience is quite broad and for which the structure of meanings is exceptionally powerful, and there will be others in which precisely the opposite happens. From this perspective, attending to the potential of the study material to develop thought skills implies two things.