戴维·奥苏贝尔（1918— ）——1939年在宾夕法尼亚大学获学士学位，1940年在哥伦比亚大学获心理学硕士学位。1943年获布兰迪斯大学医学博士学位，1950年获哥伦比亚大学哲学博士学位。1950年后先后在美国伊里诺斯大学教育研究部、加拿大多伦多大学教育学院和安大略教育研究院（ＯＩＳＥ）应用心理学系任教，1968年后在美国纽约市立大学任教，曾在该校师范教育部任研究和评价的主管，后来又在该校的研究生院和大学中心工作过。
奥苏贝尔主要关注学校学习理论的研究，同时在理论医学、临床医学、精神病理学和发展心理学等领域也有研究。他曾在美国心理学会、美国教育协会、美国医学协会、全国科学院农业教育部、白宫吸毒问题研究小组、生物学课程研究委员会等组织里参与工作，并在1976年获美国心理学会颁发的桑代克教育心理学奖。
他的主要代表著作有：
《自我发展与个性失调（Ego Development and the Personality Disorders）》（1952）、
《青少年发展的理论与问题（Theory and Problems of Adolescent Development）》（1954、1977，第二版时与人合作）、
《儿童发展的理论与问题（Theory and Problems of Child Development）》（1958）、
《意义言语学习心理学（The Psychology of Meaningful Verbal Learning）》（1963）、
《教育心理学：一种认知观（Educational Psychology：A Cognitive View）》（1968、1978，第二版时与人合作）、
《学校学习：教育心理学导论（School Learning：An Introduction to Educational Psychology）》（1969，与人合作）、
《自我心理学与精神障碍（Ego Psychology and Mental Disorder）》（1977，与人合作）。
David P.Ausubel（1918~ current）
David Paul Ausubel was born on October 25, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York.
What works in classrooms was the focus David Ausubel preferred for educational psychology. Ausubel’s research was built on the premise that new learning takes place most effectively when it fits into schemes that already exist in student’s minds. His advocacy of reception learning and expository teaching brought the expression “advance organizers” into the common vocabulary and practice of classroom teachers.
David P. Ausubel came to educational psychology from the field of medicine. He was an assistant surgeon and psychiatric resident with the U.S. Public Health Service and worked in Germany in the medical treatment of displaced persons immediately after World War II. After completing his training in psychiatry, Ausubel entered Columbia University and earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology.
In 1950 Ausubel accepted a position with the Bureau of Educational Research at the University of Illinois. He remained with the Bureau for the next sixteen years. While Ausubel was at the University of Illinois, he published extensively on cognitive psychology. Ausubel left the University of Illinois in 1966 in order to accept a position with the Department of Applied Psychology, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education. He was in Toronto for two years, 1966-68. He moved to become Professor and Head of the Department of Educational Psychology, Graduate School and University of New York, where he served until his retirement in 1975. When Ausubel retired from university teaching, he returned to the practice of psychiatry at the Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center.
David P. Ausubel (1918 - ) contributed much to cognitivelearning theory in his explaination of meaningful verbal learning which he sawas the predominant method of classroom learning.
To Ausubel, meaning was aphenomenon of consciousness and not of behavior. The external world acquiresmeaning when it is converted into the "content of consciousness." Hebelieved that a signifier (ie. word) has a meaning when its effect upon thelearner is equivalent to the effect of the object it signifies.
Bruner believedwhen there is "...some form of representational equivalence betweenlanguage (or symbols) and mental content," then there is meaning. Hebelieved there are two processes involved in cognitive learning: the receptionprocess and the discovery process. What he termed receptionprocesses are almost exclusively used in meaningful verbal learning. Concept formation and problem solving are more likely, according to Ausubel, toinvlove discovery processes.
Ausubel felt discovery learning techniques are often uneconomical,inefficient, and ineffective. He felt most school learning is verbal learning(receptive learning).
Subsequent research has shown that verbal learning is most effective forrapid learning and retention and that discovery learning is most effective infacilitating transfer.
