Plain English Meaning

Vague or general words that don't point to anything specific the student can picture. They describe ideas rather than things you can see or touch.

Full Definition

Words or ideas that refer to general concepts rather than specific, concrete things a learner can directly see, touch, or picture. In instruction, abstractions are terms that lack a clear, observable referent for the student, making them difficult to grasp without examples, demonstrations, or comparisons to something familiar.

Context Anchor

Seen in aviation teaching, lesson planning, ground instruction, and cockpit explanations, especially when an instructor is deciding whether an explanation is clear enough for the learner to apply.

Derivation

From the Latin abstrahere, meaning 'to draw away from.' An abstraction is an idea drawn away from any specific example — pulled up to a general level. That's exactly why abstractions are hard to learn: they've been separated from the concrete things that would make them clear.