Psychological Process: Growing Apperceptive Mass

Founder: Johann Friedrich Herbart

Oldenburg, Germany  May 4, 1776  -  August 14, 1841

Johann Friedrich Herbart was a leader in the evolution of educational psychology and pedagogy, known primarily for his theory of apperception and a structured instructional model. Herbart studied under philosopher Immanuel Kant, emphasizing humanism and individual experience as central to education. He distinguished between teaching—simply delivering knowledge—and educating, which involves active engagement and socialization, promoting moral character alongside intellectual development.

Definition of Herbartian Psychological Process:

"Growing apperception mass" refers to the expansion and development of an individual's "apperceptive mass," which is the collection of all their past experiences, memories, and knowledge that shapes how they perceive and understand new information. Growing this mass involves a continuous process of assimilation, where new ideas are linked to existing ones, leading to a richer, more complex cognitive framework and a greater capacity to tackle new and complex problems.

Significance of Herbart’s Contributions:

Herbart’s Five Formal Steps has been adopted by many curriculum organizations such as State Department Guidelines, College Evaluations, and College Course Syllabi. Evaluation may be added to his list but most educators see evaluation included in the Preparation step.

The Five Formal Steps of Herbart's Method

Preparation: The teacher connects new material to the student’s prior knowledge and interests to build anticipation and a foundation for learning.

Presentation: New information is presented through concrete objects or direct experiences to make it tangible for the students.

Association: New ideas are explicitly compared to previous ones, noting both similarities and differences to help the student assimilate the new concept.

Generalization: The new knowledge is moved beyond its concrete form, helping the student to generalize it and see the relationships between ideas.

Application: Students are encouraged to use the acquired knowledge to interpret life and solve problems, internalizing it and making the connection their own.

One Coach’s Usage of Herbert’s Method

It’s the beginning of the new basketball season at Bureau County Junior High School and Coach Harold Woodard is making plans for his Little Giants heavyweight team. They had a great season last year. He lost two of his best players to the High School and he is going over his returning players from last year plus the new players from sixth grade with his Assistant Coach Angelo Garcia.

This summer he attended a seminar on sports psychology and was impressed with Herbart’s methods.  He and his assistant coach are doing some planning using Growing Apperception Mass as a structure.

Coach W: One of my thoughts is to add some zone defense. Our players really do well man-to-man - we just have to get them to change to covering an area rather than covering their man.

Assistant Coach G. If we make Dave our floor captain, he’ll take charge and have the rest doing it well. I suggest we make him our center; Chuck will do OK as a forward and he and Dave worked well together last year.

Coach W: Zone defense requires more teamwork. Let’s see which guys catch on and use them when we play zone.

Assistant Coach G: Will we be starting our team off with The Wolf and the Pack concept again? I really like it and the players caught on to the idea and lived with it. Their idea of teamwork was really great.

Coach W: Oh, absolutely. It’s our trademark.

Commentary: This planning will continue utilizing the concepts of psychology defined by Herbart.

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ― Carl Gustav Jung