I’ve been researching cognitive bias recently (don’t judge just yet, it’s more interesting than it sounds), in an effort to improve my decision-making ability. I discovered that I’m pretty good at identifying flaws in other people’s thinking, and yet pretty poor at applying this same level of scrutiny to my own.
One particular cognitive bias that caught my attention is The Dunning-Kruger effect. It states that the less competent we are in something, the more confident we’ll be in our abilities in that area.
This can result in a double-whammy of both making poor choices and lacking the competence to recognise it. Ouch.
I realised I’ve come across this bias often in my career without knowing it. And I’m sure you have too.
Maybe you’ve even seen Jimmy Kimmel’s ‘Lie Witness News’, in which certain groups of people known for their proficient knowledge in a subject (think music fans, movie buffs) lie through their teeth about made up bands and films with such confidence that it’s clear they might even believe what they're saying.
Dunning affirms that “the trouble with ignorance is that it feels so much like expertise”.
The effect is visible in explicit statements, too, Such as “I already know all of this” or “There’s nothing for me to learn here, this will be a total waste of my time”. Donald Trump's attitude is a textbook example – it’s been said that “he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know”.
This effect is challenging because if you don’t know you’re doing it, then you can’t take steps to fix it.
And for training specifically, it’s a big problem. If our learners think they already know what we want to teach them, then they’ve switched off before the training’s even started. This negates any potential benefits training could provide.
However, there is hope!
Immediate feedback
One of the key features of Yarno is that we provide immediate feedback to a learner on how they answered. We included this feature originally based on learning research, which showed immediate feedback can correct misconceptions and help learners build correct mental models.
What we didn’t expect, however, was for immediate feedback to prove an ally in piercing the Dunning-Kruger effect.
A number of learners on our first pilot were surprised at some of the questions they were answering incorrectly. These were 10-15 year veterans, often managers, who assumed that the questions would be a breeze. After recognising that this wasn’t the case, they were motivated to focus their attention on these discrepancies and resolve them.
While beneficial, this realisation can also be confronting. No one likes to be proven wrong, especially not in front of our colleagues. So we make a real effort with Yarno to create a safe and supportive learning environment. We do this by framing Yarno as practice rather than a test. And an important part of practice is making mistakes. It’s how we all learn.
So the next time you find yourself responding with "I already know that", “I don’t need to know that” or “that’s not relevant to me”, take a moment to ponder whether the Dunning-Kruger effect could be at play.
To learn about the big impact little bites of learning can have, download our microlearning white-paper.
