Cone of Experience (Edgar Dale)

Edward Dale's cone of experience was firstly introduced in his book “Audio-visual methods in teaching” published in 1946. It was an image explaining types of mediated learning experiences. The Cone was organized by starting with most abstract experiences from its top, changing to most concrete experiences at its bottom. In later editions of the book it was subjected to some minor changes, but the original cone image can be found here.

The importance of Dale's cone of experience is in its assumptions of how we learn more efficiently and in appliance of such resources or activities during the educational process. Assumptions stated in this cone have been of interest to many later cognitivist psychologists and theories.

NOTE: Bogus percentage numbers have later been added to Dale's cone. They aren't however in any way related to the original Cone.

Bibliography

Molenda, M. “Cone of experience.” Educational Technology: An Encyclopedia (2003).

“Selecting and Using Instructional Resources to Enhance Instruction - Section D.”.