Assimilation and AccommodationAssimilation and Accommodation are the two complementary processes of Adaptation described by Piaget,through which awareness of the outside world is internalised. Although one may predominate at any onemoment, they are inseparable and exist in a dialectical relationship. The terms are also used to describeforms of knowledge in Kolbs elaboration of the cycle of experiential learning.

In Assimilation, what is perceived in the outside world is incorporated into the internal world (note that I amnot using Piagetian terminology), without changing the structure of that internal world, but potentially at thecost of "squeezing" the external perceptions to fit hence pigeon-holing and stereotyping.

If you are familiar with databases, you can think of it this way: your mind has its database already built, withits fields and categories already defined. If it comes across new information which fits into those fields, it canassimilate it without any trouble.

In Accommodation, the internal world has to accommodate itself to the evidence with which it isconfronted and thus adapt to it, which can be a more difficult and painful process. In the database analogy, itis like what happens when you try to put in information which does not fit the pre-existent fields andcategories. You have to develop new ones to accommodate the new information.

In reality, both are going on at the same time, so thatjust as the mower blade cuts the grass, the grassgradually blunts the bladealthough most of the time we are assimilating familiar material in the worldaround us, nevertheless, our minds are also having to adjust to accommodate it.

Piaget was mainly concerned with children's developing understanding of the world, so for him (and for children)accommodation is no more problematic than assimilation. That does not necessarily hold as we grow older. We have ways ofunderstanding our world which work for us, as relatively successful (i.e. surviving) adults. There is no problem in assimilatingnew information and ideas which fit with this world-view, but we find it increasingly difficult to accommodate to new stuff. Onecognitive problem of ageing has been well labelled "hardening of the categories"!

See "Resistance to Learning"

and cognitive dissonance

What's "dialectical" mean? It starts with Socrates (about 470-399 BCE) whose manner of questioning (now known as Socraticand much venerated as a teaching technique) contested generally-accepted propositions in order to draw out a newunderstanding. It was systematised by Hegel (1770-1831), a candidate for the most obscure philosopher ever, reputed to

Site map:Learning

Site map:Teaching

About

References

[Memory] [Gestalt and learning]

[Piaget'sdevelopmental

theory] [Experiential

Learning] [Aspects of Cognitive

Learning Theory] [Intelligence]

[Motivation] [Dale/Bruner]

from the Whilelooking forsomething

else... blog...Items to Share; 3...

Education Focus A DonsLife: Exams, ...

Items to Share: 2...Education Focus How

should I revisit ...Items to Share: 1...

Education Focus HowOne Psychologist...

Items to Share; 2...Back again. Move went

well, thanks. N...No Items to Share...

We're moving, so I'll beoff-grid for...

FeedWind

Assimilation and Accommodation http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/assimacc.htm

1 of 2 07-06-2015 19:02

have said on his death-bed, "No-one ever understood me; even I didn't understand me", but actually it is quite simple.

It is a notion of logical development in which an idea (thesis) is opposed by another idea (antithesis), and out of the clashemerges something else (synthesis). Its simplest and most boring manifestation is compromise, but it can lead to somethingreally new.

Marx took it up for the idea of "dialectical materialism", but don't hold that against it. There are links with oscillation theory[Back to top]

To reference this page copy and paste the text below:

Atherton J S (2013) Learning and Teaching; Assimilation and Accommodation [On-line: UK] retrieved 7 June 2015 fromhttp://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/assimacc.htm

Comments (including broken links etc.) welcome (even needed) please: email me here

Original material by James Atherton: last up-dated overall 10 February 2013

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Search Learningandteaching.info and associated sites:

Save this on Delicious Tweet Click here to send to a friend

This site is independent and self-funded, although the contribution of the Higher Education Academy to its development viathe award of a National Teaching Fellowship, in 2004 has been greatly appreciated. The site does not accept advertising orsponsorship (apart from what I am lumbered with on the reports from the site Search facility above), and invitations/proposals/demands will be ignored, as will SEO spam. I am of course not responsible for the content of any external links; anyendorsement is on the basis only of my quixotic judgement. Suggestions for new pages and corrections of errors or reasonabledisagreements are of course always welcome. I am not on FaceBook or LinkedIn.

Back to top

Assimilation and Accommodation http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/assimacc.htm

2 of 2 07-06-2015 19:02