1. Because I want to Learn. I don’t want to spread Bad Information

• So that I don’t mislead my clients.
• Well, it is mostly because I want to understand things deeper and better. I am not sure if I am so passionate about the debunking bit as I believe that most people understand things the way they want to understand… and rather than ‘debunking’ them, it is better to explore together… that, with a clear understanding that one might oneself be wrong many times. Also, a lot of understanding comes with the context. What can be said can be said in as many words, everything else should be left to silence.
• To be accurately informed.
• This will compel me to read more research articles and thus, enhance my own learning. Also, have always enjoyed nit-picking!!
• I want to create great learning for people. So, I read a ton of new information that seems reasonable, but there’s always a little voice in my head that thinks, “Is this just someone’s best guess? Or is it legitimate?”  I’d like to know my time spent on professional development isn’t just folly.
• I lead teaching and learning in a secondary school, and want to focus on what works, for the sake of hard – working teachers, and have some defense against the enthusiastic but misguided.
• I believe that we are subject to too many myths and not enough truths in L&D. To that end I want to make sure that I’m not spreading any myths myself.
• I want to make sure I’m making effective learning without the distraction of all these perpetuated myths. There’s already enough terrible instructional design out there, I don’t want to contribute to it!
• I want to make sure I’m not a spreader of false information!
• I really want to know what works; not only do myths get in the way of good learning ‘products’, they often excite my clients into demanding wrong solutions. I need ammunition to curtail the noise.
• To up my game and in turn our Industry.
• To stay connected to learning research — including research that contradicts received wisdom.
• To learn if what I think I’m doing and what I’m actually doing work. There is a depth of woo-woo in this field. Some, of it is mixed with research and goes too far. I would like to ensure that what I’m sharing and consulting is as evidence based as possible.
• I want my practice to be based on sound research.
• To gain clarity in an area that’s frequently confusing and contradictory.  This is a superb idea!

2. Because I want to Help Improve Information in the Learning Field

• I am upset by the degradation of our profession through the marketing of complete nonsense that simply gets clicks and/or actual money.
• I’d love to help stop the spread of misinformation and magical thinking.
• I want education to become an evidence informed field, with professionals who can rely on a body of knowledge, while exploring how to improve their own practice.
• I am simply thrilled to learn about this project. It ties together one of my private passions – skepticism — with my career in learning development. I think forming some community around evidence-based learning practices is an inspired idea. I also really like that you’re targeting the “cone” because it’s so prominent. Many of us are familiar with arguments about “learning styles” and I’ve done my best to debunk them, but their simplicity makes them persist. I think the “cone” is appealing for similar reasons but even more ubiquitous in and out of learning circles.
• Because I’m tired of organizations endorsing stuff like 70-20-10 or learning styles that have no research basis and are junk science at best.
• Keen to make a ‘real’ difference to the lives of our learners!
• Because I can’t stand all the missed opportunities that misinformation fuels.
• You said it, misinformation can be dangerous.  I am dedicated to ensuring excellent learning experiences — whether I create them or not.  I believe in the Learning Design field and want to ensure its quality future. 🙂
• I’m naturally an evidence-based person and can’t stand poor reasoning or inadequate support. I see tons of it in the learning field and hear the same myths over and over. Our field can sometimes even resist sound research in favor of shiny theories. I want to join the army of debunkers to improve the conversation and do work that actually makes a difference for learners.
• To help newcomers into the field start with a foundation in fact, not a foundation based on folklore, myths, legends, and sometimes outright falsehoods.
• When educators jump on the latest and greatest bandwagon before applying evidence based methods, andragogy, &/or brain research, it disrespects the science of our profession.
• We in L&D need to challenge and question FADS and other new shinny toys. We need to provide constructive and informative feedback and not just agree with each other – no matter who it is !
• Bad ideas waste my time, which I have too little of to spend on nonsense.
• I have spent a good bit of my career as an Instructional Designer fighting against people who want me to include “Learning Style Preferences” in my Train the Trainer classes. I have asked questions like, “If people can only remember 7 +/- 2, then why is the game Simon so difficult but playing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ for the first time is not?”    The biggest problem I have with Learning Myths is that people almost NEVER ask themselves two important questions:  1. Is this really true?  2. Is this what I experience when learning?    If I can join the fight against Misinformation, sign me up now.
• Because I’m fed up of all the crap that gets swilled around the L&D field and I’m fed up of people who are fed up, but do nothing about this other than complaining that academic research is too hard to understand – like that’s an excuse for being ignorant.
• I hate myths like VAK theory, and the hijacking of Dale’s Cone, which prevent so many teachers and trainers from finding out how people really learn.
• I am exhausted by what seems the Sisyphean task of debunking myths, particularly those around learning styles and personality traits, alone and wish to join in confederacy with others. The damage this kind of nonsense has done, and continues to do, to our learners is disgraceful.
• There are too many mirrors and smoke in the learning field; the mirrors are the myths,  the smoke is the ‘delivery mechanism’  that we are all buying.
• I just want to make sure people don’t propagate myths and unverified information in the field of education.
• I am a big believer in the information age, but the age of information also means the age of disinformation. If we were to draw a parallel with the industrial age, this would be the shoddy living and working conditions of the 19th century. A source of many social ills of the period, it is a beast that must be restrained if not destroyed.
• It would be so great to find less snake oil advertised as some kind of usefulness. If we can politely assist, great!
• After over 10 years in the learning field I am disheartened by careless, even lazy, design and though around how people learn. I cringe every time someone mentions ‘we need to account for all the learning styles…” or “I’m a visual learner so…”  The myths are in the workplace, schools, churches, even healthcare as they attempt to “gamify” services to attract millennials that play Candy Crush.  And lastly, low value or ROI/ROE has created far too many adversarial or ambivalent relationships between learning professionals and executives.  I want it all to change.
• I was a victim of educational bunk when I earned my undergraduate degree in education in 1970. I will always regret the crap I subjected my poor students to for several years. Then, while browsing the aisles in the Notre Dame library waiting for the ND v. Navy game to start, I ran across a copy of Asahel D. Woodruff’s “Basic Concepts of Teaching.” It opened my eyes to evidence-based methods and forever changed my teaching. Following that experience, I began a 40 year quest to read the research and apply it when and where I could.  Ten years later, I discovered and devoured Mager’s works and my teaching improved. Shortly after that, I left teaching for training. I joined NSPI and met Mager face-to-face as well as a hotel filled with brilliant people who knew so much more than me–my education was just beginning. I attended all of Harless’ workshops and attended most of NSPI/ISPI’s conferences. I was astonished that so many people in the audience at questionable sessions demanded, “Show me your data!” Then I met people like Will Thalheimer, Jeanne Farrington, Dick Clark, and many others. Eventually, I began to ask for evidence and to enlighten misinformed, ill-informed, and illogical people wherever I’d find them. I’m thrilled to find an organization of like-minded people.
• I have a passionate dislike of misinformation in e-learning, all the more when it goes unchallenged so becomes a dominant orthodoxy of “truth” just through virtue of repetition  <- this is a phrase I probably bore people by saying a lot.  :-)
• Many people believe nearly anything. Many people will repeat anything without question. Myths perpetuate themselves unless some people are prepared to actively question.
• 1. Our field needs to be professionalized (why should others take this field seriously if I’m so skeptical of so much of the work it seems to produce)    2. I like the tone The Debunker Club is setting — it’s fun to tear apart ideas (not people).
• I believe that as learning professionals we have a duty to be truthful. Learning professionals who spread misinformation harm learners and the profession.

3. Miscellaneous Responses and Whimsy

• I want to use the debunker logo on my presentations on eLearning. 🙂  Okay that’s not the only reason. I think it would an interesting experiment in collective learning and I want to participate in the experience. Who knows what I would learn?
• Fun!
• I am a scientist.
• I like a skeptic.
• I am a debunker so this is my club!
• Learning myths are bad things – very, very bad things.
• I have a growth mindset and believe that we can all improve!
• Am allergic wrong information – when I come across it I start giving murderous looks to person providing spreading it.
• I spend so much time fighting learning myths, particularly learning styles (as opposed to learning preferences) that it drives me nuts! Any group out to slay the dragons of misinformation has me as a follower.
• Think it’s a fun way to approach a serious concern in the training industry.
• I kind of like the sound of the word ‘debunker’! 🙂 Plus of course, there is no dearth of stuff that needs to be debunked! The stuff just needs to be debunked and for sanity to reign, is a long list!
• I already do all these things, so it seems logical to get badges for it 🙂
• I am a budding scholar on my own way toward an EdD, and an experienced ID in academia and business contexts. Happy to contribute to the battle for truthiness.
• Because I grow so weary of those in the training industry having a form of ADD that causes them to run from one shiny new idea to another – just because it’s new, with little regard for if it’s even valid.  And don’t even get me started on generations in the workplace…
• Because if I get asked about ‘Learning Styles’ one more time, I may actually cry. Or hit someone. Or both.
• I am fascinated with the human sociology of following others. Look up at the ceiling in a crowded mall, others will invariably do so. Is this an innate behavior from our caveman days? Why do we do this? and all other sorts of questions that plague my sleep….i love learning and i want it accurate.
• The only thing harder than instilling fact is extracting folklore. Seriously, who could resist such a challenge? Maybe an overly-developed, albeit assuredly well-founded, sense of superiority? Seriously, those who are bent on changing the minds of others have some serious issues and dealing with serious issues calls for joining a support group of those similarly afflicted. The Debunker’s Club is just the ticket!
• I like hopeless causes. After many years in instructional design, I’m pretty sure this one is hopeless. But we have to fight on.