Please check out the following site – Work-Learning Research.
This link provides information related to claims made regarding the benefits of “learning by doing.”
The source cited in the diagram above by Wiman and Meierhenry (1969) is a book of edited chapters. Though two of the chapters (Harrison, 1969; Stewart, 1969) mention Dale’s Cone of Experience, neither of them includes the percentages. In other words, the diagram above is citing a book that does not include the diagram and does not include the percentages indicated in the diagram.
If you follow some of the same discussions I do, it is interesting to note how such claims originate. There must be an important lesson in this situation for educators. ALWAYS question and spend some time with primary sources.
Don Lemon, a faculty colleague sent me an email indicating:
The Dale being referred to is, I believe, Edgar Dale, a UND graduate from Rugby, ND. His writings in education were popular in the 1930s — 1950s. It seems I recall that he had a “Cone of Experience.”
