Treichler didn’t cite any research, but our field has unfortunately accepted his/her percentages ever since. The bogus percentages were first published by an employee of Mobil Oil Company in 1967, writing in the magazine Film and Audio-Visual Communications. JC Kinnamon (2002) of Midi, Inc., searched the web and found dozens of references to those dubious numbers in college courses, research reports, and in vendor and consultant promotional materials. The numbers presented on the graph have been circulating in our industry since the late 1960’s, and they have no research backing whatsoever. The graph is representative of a larger problem. Clearly, lots of experienced professionals in our field know this graph and have used it to guide their decision making. Later I often hear audible gasps and nervous giggles as the information is debunked. Typically, over 90% of the audience raises their hands when I ask whether anyone has seen the numbers depicted in the graph. I often begin my workshops on instructional design and e-learning and my conference presentations with this graph as a warning and wake up call. What makes this particularly disturbing is that this graph has popped up all over our industry, and many instructional-design decisions have been based on the information contained in the graph. So the citation is definitely wrong since it’s not my graph.”

Michelene Chi of the University of Pittsburgh (who is, by the way, one of the world’s leading authorities on expertise). My investigation of this issue began when I came across the following graph:Īfter reading the cited article several times and not seeing the graph-nor the numbers on the graph-I got suspicious and got in touch with the first author of the cited study, Dr. The rest of this article offers more detail. Unfortunately, this bogus information has been floating around our field for decades, crafted by many different authors and presented in many different configurations, including bastardizations of Dale’s Cone. Moreover, general statements on the effectiveness of learning methods are not credible-learning results depend on too many variables to enable such precision.

That information, and similar pronouncements are fraudulent. People do NOT remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they see, 30% of what they hear, etc. You can read a review of that research here. However, further research has uncovered additional information and has been published in a scientific journal in 2014. It was moved to my WillAtWorkLearning Blog in 2006, and has now been moved here in late 2017.Įven after more than a decade, this blog post still provides valuable information explaining the issues - and the ramifications for learning.

It may have had some minor changes since then. This article was originally published on the Work-Learning Research website (in 2002.

Rik's by D.H. Treichler