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Sang Joon Lee and Thomas C. Reeves
Editor’s Note: The following chapter was based on the following article, previously published in Educational Technology.
Lee, S. J., & Reeves, T. C. (2007). Edgar Dale: A significant contributor to the field of educational technology. Educational Technology, 47(6), 56.
How can teachers use audiovisual materials to promote learning that persists? How can audiovisual materials enable students to enjoy learning through vicarious experience? These were two of the many important research and development questions addressed by an extraordinary educational technology pioneer, Edgar Dale. Although he is perhaps best remembered today for his often misinterpreted “Cone of Experience,” Dale made significant contributions in many areas as evidenced by just a few of the titles of the many books he wrote during his long lifespan (1900-1988), including: How to Appreciate Motion Pictures (1933), Teaching with Motion Pictures (1937), How to Read a Newspaper (1941), Audiovisual Methods in Teaching (1946, 1954, 1969), Techniques of Teaching Vocabulary (1971), Building a Learning Environment (1972), The Living Word Vocabulary: The Words We Know (1976), and The Educator’s Quotebook (1984).
Background
Born in 1900 at the dawn of a new millennium, Edgar Dale’s work continues to influence educational technologists in the 21st Century. Dale grew up on a North Dakota farm, and according to Wagner (1970), he retained the no-nonsense thinking habits and strong work ethic of his Scandinavian forebears throughout his illustrious career. While working on the family farm and later as a teacher in a small rural school, Dale earned both his Bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of North Dakota partially through correspondence courses.
In 1929, he completed a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and then joined the Eastman Kodak Company where he collaborated on some of the earliest studies of learning from film. Interestingly, although many of these early studies were experimental ones designed to compare learning from film with other media, Dale later expressed distain for such studies. According to De Vaney and Butler (1996):
When Dale was asked why he did not do experimental research in which a scholar attempted to prove over and over that students learn from radio or film, he replied: “It always bothers me, because anybody knows that we learn from these things (media). There’s no issue about that. . . . Well I suppose in any field, to be respectable you have to do a certain kind of research. (p. 17)
In addition to his own prolific scholarship, Edgar Dale mentored an outstanding cadre of doctoral students during his long role as a professor at Ohio State University (1929-1973), including Jeanne Chall and James Finn. Dale also served as President of the Division of Visual Instruction (DVI) of the National Education Association (NEA) from 1937-38, the professional association that is now known as the Association for Educational Comm