Subramony Molenda et al 2014a

The Mythical Retention Chart and the Corruption of Dale’s Cone of Experience

1. Références

• Référence complète APA : Subramony, D., Molenda, M., Betrus, A., and Thalheimer, W. (2014a). The Mythical Retention Chart and the Corruption of Dale’s Cone of Experience. Educational Technology, Nov/Dec 2014, 54(6), 6-16.

• Auteur(s) :

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2. Copies

• Copie en ligne :

• Copie locale : voir Educational_Technology_54_6

• Copie physique :

3. Mots-clés

• Pyramide de l'apprentissage

5. Résumé (facultatif)

Le résumé infra est copié du blog de Will Thalheimer, entrée "Mythical Retention Data & The Corrupted Cone", 5/1/2015 (https://www.worklearning.com/2015/01/05/mythical-retention-data-the-corrupted-cone/)

"The article makes four claims.

Claim 1: The Data in the Retention Chart is Not Credible

First, there is no body of research that supports the data presented in the many forms of the retention chart. That is, there is no scientific data—or other data—that supports the claim that People Remember some percentage of what they learned. Interestingly, where people have relied on research citations from 1943, 1947, 1963, and 1967 as the defining research when they cite the source of their data, the numbers—10%, 20%, 30% and so on—actually appeared as early as 1914 and 1922—when they were presented as information long known. A few years ago, I compiled research on actual percentages of remembering. You can access it here.

Second, the fact that the numbers all are divisible by 5 or 10 makes it obvious to anyone who has done research that these are not numbers derived by actual research. Human variability precludes round numbers. In addition, as pointed out as early at 1978 by Dwyer, there is the question of how the data were derived—what were learners actually asked to do? Note for example that the retention chart data always measures—among other things—how much people remember by reading, hearing, and seeing. How people could read without seeing is an obvious confusion. What are people doing when they only see and don’t read or listen? Also problematic is how you’d create a fair test to compare situations where learners listened or watched something. Are they tested on different tests (one where they see and one where they listen), which seems to allow bias or are they tested on the same test, in which case on group would be at a disadvantage because they aren’t taking a test in the same context in which they learned.

Third, the data portrayed don’t relate to any other research in the scientific literature on learning. As the authors write, “There is within educational psychology a voluminous literature on remembering and learning from various mediated experiences. Nowhere in this literature is there any summary of findings that remotely resembles the fictitious retention chart.” (p. 8)

Finally, as the author’s say, “Making sense of the retention chart is made nearly impossible by the varying presentations of the data, the numbers in the chart being a moving target, altered by the users to fit their individual biases about desirable training methods.” (p. 9).

Claim 2: Dale’s Cone is Misused.

Dale’s Cone of Experience is a visual depiction that portrays more concrete learning experiences at the bottom of the cone and more abstract experiences at the top of the cone. As the authors write, “The cone shape was meant to convey the gradual loss of sensory information” (p. 9) in the learning experiences as one moved from lower to higher levels on the cone.

“The root of all the perversions of the Cone is the assumption that the Cone is meant to be a prescriptive guide. Dale definitely intended the Cone to be descriptive—a classification system, not a road map for lesson planning.” (p. 10)

Claim 3: Combining the Retention Chart Data with Dale’s Cone

“The mythical retention data and the concrete-to-abstract cone evolved separately throughout the 1900’s, as illustrated in [the fourth article] ‘Timeline of the Mythical Retention Chart and Corrupted Dale’s Cone.’ At some point, probably around 1970, some errant soul—or perhaps more than one person—had the regrettable idea of overlaying the dubious retention data on top of Dale’s Cone of Experience.” (p. 11). We call this concoction the corrupted cone.

“What we do know is that over the succeeding years [after the original corruption] the corrupted cone spread widely from one source to another, not in scholarly publications—where someone might have asked hard questions about sources—but in ephemeral materials, such as handouts and slides used in teaching or manuals used in military or corporate training.” (p. 11-12).

“With the growth of the Internet, the World Wide Web, after 1993 this attractive nuisance spread rapidly, even virally. Imagine the retention data as a rapidly mutating virus and Dale’s Cone as a host; then imagine the World Wide Web as a bathhouse. Imagine the variety of mutations and their resistance to antiviral treatment. A Google Search in 2014 revealed 11,000 hits for ‘Dale’s Cone,’ 14,500 for ‘Cone of Learning,’ and 176,000 for ‘Cone of Experience.’ And virtually all of them are corrupted or fallacious representations of the original Dale’s cone. It just might be the most widespread pedagogical myth in the history of Western civilization!” (p. 11).

Claim 4: Murky Provenance

People who present the fallacious retention data and/or the corrupted cone often cite other sources—that might seem authoritative. Dozens of attributions have been made over the years, but several sources appear over and over, including the following:

• Edgar Dale
• Wiman & Meierhenry
• Bruce Nyland
• Various oil companies (Mobil, Standard Oil, Socony-Vacuum Oil, etc.)
• NTL Institute
• William Glasser
• British Audio-Visual Society
• Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser (1989).

Unfortunately, none of these sources are real sources. They are false.

Conclusion

“The retention chart cannot be supported in terms of scientific validity or logical interpretability. The Cone of Experience, created by Edgar Dale in 1946, makes no claim of scientific grounding, and its utility as a prescriptive theory is thoroughly unjustified.” (p. 15)

“No qualified scholar would endorse the use of this mish-mash as a guide to either research or design of learning environments. Nevertheless, [the corrupted cone] obviously has an allure that surpasses logical considerations. Clearly, it says something that many people want to hear. It reduces the complexity of media and method selection to a simple and easy to remember formula. It can thus be used to support a bias toward whatever learning methodology might be in vogue. Users seem to employ it as pseudo-scientific justification for their own preferences about media and methods.” (p. 15)