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information retention

by t on December 4, 2006

Many clients don’t take advantage of crafting their messages to be most memorable. The reason presentation mavens use the best practice of “tell them what you’re going to say, then say it, then tell them what you just told them” is because repetition alone will make something stick. But further than that, the more interactive your message, the more it will resonate.

A commonly-known study concluded that people will remember:
- 10% of what they read
- 20% of what they hear
- 30% of what they see
- 50% of what they see and hear
- 70% of what they talk over with others
- 80% of what they use and do in real life
- 95% of what they teach someone else to do

Even those in education have studied this:

“A point no educational psychologist would dispute is that students learn more when information is presented in a variety of modes than when only a single mode is used. The point is supported by a research study carried out several decades ago, which concluded that students retain 10 percent of what they read, 26 percent of what they hear, 30 percent of what they see, 50 percent of what they see and hear, 70 percent of what they say, and 90 percent of what they say as they do something.”

[Stice, J.E. 1987. 'Using Kolb's Learning Cycle To Improve Student Learning.' Engineering Education 77: 29 1-296."]

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