For those who might be curious here is an update:

1) Several sources indicate the retention myth is based on the work of Edgar Dale. This is not true. Actually, there have been so many misuses of adding numbers to his work that Wikipedia had to purge its references to remove them in 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Dale

2) I have been in contact with Kevin Hogan. Kevin works extensively in accelerated learning. He has agreed that there are no studies comparing retention.. no hard data. And he will be removing reference to such from his web site.

3) The Bob Pike Group has forwarded my request for information to Bob. Still waiting for a reply.


Again you might be asking, why my quest for the truth? As instructional designers, I believe we should be eclectic and keep a variety of methods in our tool box. Reading is an economic and effective method. The perpetuation of reading as being ineffective does us all a disservice.

Most people read very little and yet there is a lot of learning going on. One reason people struggle with elearning that is just electronic page turning is that it really doesn't teach them out to put what their reading into action.

quote:

Again you might be asking, why my quest for the truth? As instructional designers, I believe we should be eclectic and keep a variety of methods in our tool box. Reading is an economic and effective method. The perpetuation of reading as being ineffective does us all a disservice.

At this point, I believe this is an obsession rather than a quest for the truth. Why don't you search on the TR-DEV forum. They have covered this quite extensively and have uncovered the hard proof or lack thereof that you are so desperate to find. Boy, I'm glad I've got more pressing matters to occupy my time. This thread has gone on way too long - and it doesn't matter one iota!!!!

With the exception of the dismissive and condescending replies a few members feel compelled to offer on this and the other Community discussions I, for one, appreciate the conversation.

Different voices add to the richness of the learning experience. I may not understand them all, or even agree with them, but they remain part of this thing we call a community....and they are welcome.

So Cj...keep the thoughts coming!

quote:

Originally posted by Learning Path Consultants:
Most people read very little and yet there is a lot of learning going on. One reason people struggle with elearning that is just electronic page turning is that it really doesn't teach them out to put what their reading into action.

I'd be curious to see if there is a difference between reading something online vs hardcopy. Hardcopy you can make notes on it that enhance your learning, but it's much harder to do that if reading something electronically. Just thinking out loud here....