The Thalheimer blog.

Will Thalheimer has the scholarly credentials to write evidence-based articles about learning. But he also has the real world interests and experience to write about learning for practitioners. He's down to earth (no clotted academic prose), practical, and iconoclastic without being cynical.

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For all these reasons, Training Media Review is featuring his ongoing blog. Below you'll find descriptions of some of his recent posts, with links. We'll be updating this page as Will adds new posts.

Bill Ellet

Editor

Training Media Review

Book Review: The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning, Wick, Pollock, Jefferson, and Flanagan (2006).

The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning is one of the most important books published in the training and development industry in a very long time. Read full article.

The Memory Myth

People do not remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they see, 30% of what they hear, etc. That information, and similar pronouncements, are fraudulent. Moreover, general statements on the effectiveness of learning methods are not credible. Learning results depend on too many variables to enable such precise generalizations. Unfortunately, this bogus information has been floating around our field for decades, cited by many different authors and presented in many different configurations, including bastardizations of Dale's Cone. Read full article.

Are Learning Styles Meaningless?

I will give $1,000 (US dollars) to the first person or group who can prove that taking learning styles into account in designing instruction can produce meaningful learning benefits.

I've been suspicious about the learning-styles bandwagon for many years. The learning-style argument has gone something like this: If instructional designers know the learning style of their learners, they can develop material specifically to help those learners, and such extra efforts are worth the trouble. Read full article.

Confusion over Learning Objectives

Let me propose a new taxonomy for learning objectives. This taxonomy is needed to clear up the massive confusion we all have about the uses and benefits of learning objectives. I have tried to clarify this in the past in some of my conference presentations--but I have not been successful. When I get evaluation sheet comments like, "Get real, you idiot!" from more than a few people, I know I've missed the mark.

Because I don't give up easily--and because learning objectives are so vitally important--I'm going to give this another try. Your feedback is welcome. Read full article.

Research Brief: Animations versus Paper-based Diagrams

Which is better, (1) computer-based animations with audio narration or (2) paper-based diagrams with text narratives?

Richard Mayer, Mary Hegarty, Sarah Mayer, and Julie Campbell (all of the University of California at Santa Barbara) created four experiments that attempted to answer this question. The results were clear. In not one case did the computer-based animations outperform the static paper-based depictions! In four of the eight cases, the static diagrams outperformed the animations, and in the other four cases, the differences were not statistically significant. The animation conditions never outperformed the paper-based conditions. Read full article.