Dale's Cone of Experience

When to use Dale's Cone of Experience

Most effective during the strategy and media selection phase of instructional design to determine the appropriate level of 'realism' required for a specific learning objective.

How Dale's Cone of Experience works

Instructional designers can use the Cone to audit their media mix, ensuring that abstract concepts are grounded in concrete experiences, especially for novice learners or complex new topics.

Phases of Dale's Cone of Experience

1. Direct Purposeful Experiences (Direct, firsthand participation): The most concrete level: learners handle the real thing with full responsibility for the outcome. Participants do the actual task, such as running a real meeting or working with real materials.
2. Contrived Experiences (Models, mock-ups): Edited copies of reality, such as models, mock-ups and simulations, that simplify the real thing. Participants practise on a prototype or simulation where mistakes are safe.
3. Dramatic Participation (Roleplay, puppetry): Learners reconstruct experiences they cannot have directly by acting them out. Participants roleplay a scenario or take on stakeholder roles, then debrief what they noticed.
4. Demonstrations (Visualized explanations): Learners watch how something is done, often with explanation. The facilitator or an expert shows the steps live, and participants observe before trying it themselves.
5. Field Trips (Observing real-world processes): Learners visit places to observe events and processes as they happen. Participants go on a site visit or observation walk with guiding questions, then share observations.
6. Exhibits (Meaningful displays): Arranged displays of objects, models or information that learners view and sometimes handle. Participants walk a gallery or exhibition of examples and note what stands out.
7. Motion Pictures (Film, television): Learners watch moving images that bring distant or complex events into the room. The facilitator shows a clip with a viewing task and follows up with discussion.
8. Recordings / Radio / Still Pictures (Audio and static visuals): Audio recordings and still images that give a single-sense, more abstract representation. Participants listen to a recording or study photos and interpret what they show.
9. Visual Symbols (Charts, graphs, maps): Abstract visual representations that no longer resemble the real thing. Participants read and build charts, diagrams or maps, which requires some prior concrete understanding.
10. Verbal Symbols (Written or spoken words): The most abstract level: words and text. Participants learn through reading, listening and talking, which works best once concrete experiences have given the words meaning.

Key principles

• Learning experiences move from participant-based (bottom) to spectator-based (top).
• Concrete experiences provide the necessary foundation for understanding abstract symbols.
• Effective instruction often requires a balance; over-reliance on concrete experience can hinder the ability to generalize concepts.
• Media selection should be based on the interaction between the learner, the context, and the nature of the message.

Best for

• Media selection
• Curriculum mapping
• Differentiated instruction for various developmental stages

Considerations

• Frequently misrepresented by the 'Remembering Cone' myth (the false 10/20/30/50/70/90% recall statistics).
• The Cone is an analogy of experience, not a hierarchy where 'bottom is always better.'
• Abstract learning is often more efficient for advanced learners who have sufficient prior concrete experience.

Attribution & sources

Developed by Edgar Dale, 1946 (Revised 1954, 1969)

Primary source

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