Dale’s Cone Experience
Dale’s Cone of Experience is a model that
incorporates several theories related to instructional design and learning
processes. During the 1960s, Edgar Dale theorized that learners retain more
information by what they “do” as opposed to what is “heard”, “read” or “observed”.
His research led to the development of the Cone of Experience. Today, this “learning
by doing” has become known as “experiential learning” or “action learning”.
Dale’s Cone of Experience has already
helped to remind us of some important ideas about communication, learning, and
concept development. Actually, Dale’s cone experience was
merely designed as visual aid to help explain the interrelationships of the
various types of audio-visual materials, as well as their individual
‘positions’ in the learning process. He said “The cone device is a visual
metaphor of learning experiences, in which the various types of audio-visual
materials are arranged in the order of increasing abstractness as one proceeds
from direct experiences”.
