As another poster pointed out, I see these numbers and variants often cited, even in professional educational conferences. Perhaps that is because it so closely and cleanly matches our own personal intuition about teaching. Unfortunately, it turns out there is no scientific basis for the "Learning Pyramid". And please don't use (Sousa, 2001) as evidence, I have the book "How the Brain Learns" and it simply punts on the citation to yet another institution. As an instructor, I still believe the idea has general merit even if the numbers are basically made up, but let's not take it as dogma.
I've tried to find the original scientific research myself and have concluded that it does not exist. I'm not the only one who has come to this conclusion either. [1] I would love to be corrected on this matter though. These days, I tend to use the following instead, which also matches my intuition about learning:
I've tried to find the original scientific research myself and have concluded that it does not exist. I'm not the only one who has come to this conclusion either. [1] I would love to be corrected on this matter though. These days, I tend to use the following instead, which also matches my intuition about learning:
http://xkcd.com/519/ :-)
[1] J. P. M. Lalley, “THE LEARNING PYRAMID: DOES IT POINT TEACHERS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?,” Education, vol. 128, no. 1, p. 64, Fall 2007.