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What the National Training Laboratories Learning Pyramid Retention Rates Say

“so what do the National Training Laboratories Learning Pyramid say then”
Specific retention rates
Confidence: High Checked on July 6, 2026

Summary

The National Training Laboratories Learning Pyramid states that learners retain roughly 5 % of material presented in a lecture, 10 % from reading, 20 % from audio‑visual sources, 30 % from demonstrations, 50 % from discussion groups, 75 % from practicing by doing, and up to 90 % when they teach the content to others. These percentages are presented as average retention rates for each instructional method.

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Sources 59 searched

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
eric.ed.gov
washingtonpost.com
educationcorner.com
uafs.edu
  • THE LEARNING PYRAMID

    information, and enhance your learning experience. The “learning pyramid”, developed by the National Training

fitnyc.edu
nn.ntt.edu.vn
  • LEARNING PYRAMID – Faculty of Foreign Languages

    It is clear that most students soon forget what they only passively heard from their teacher but retain up to 90% if they have a chance to be active in learning. However, the Learning Pyramid does not suggest that we rule out “passive” learning methods altogether.

scienceoutside.org
en.wikipedia.org
  • Learning pyramid - Wikipedia

    The earliest such representation is believed to originate in a 1954 book called Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching. A pyramid model was supposedly developed by the National Training Laboratories Institute in the early 1960s, on its main campus in Bethel, Maine, for which the original, internal ...

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