Illusions Of Competence Research Articles

The Illusion of Competence: A Qualitative Deep Dive into Workplace False Performance

This qualitative paper develops an understanding of False Performance as a negative form of workplace behaviour which has received scant attention. According to the quantitative literature, which measures False Performance using the Organisational Charlatan Scale (OCS), false performers are incompetent employees who deliberately portray themselves as better able to perform in a job role than they know themselves to be capable. In this study, False Performance was explored in United Kingdom public-sector organisations for the first time, using novel focus-group methodology and grounded theory. Eight focus groups (n = 51) were conducted to explore employees’ perceptions and experiences of False Performance, with a focus on job interviews and performance appraisals. Using NVivo for analysis, five categories emerged: Co-Worker Perceptions of False Performance in the Workplace, False Performance in Interview/Appraisal Settings, The Impact of Trust on the False Performer, The Effect of False Performance on Co-Worker Morale, and Preventing False Performance in the Workplace. The results support the literature review that False Performance is a new and negative addition to the taxonomies of job performance. Human resources (HR) managers are, therefore, urged to prevent and reduce False Performance via well-designed selection processes and performance appraisals, thereby improving co-worker trust amongst employees.

중학생의 시험 불안이 영어 학업 성취에 미치는 영향

Objectives This study aims to identify the relationship between learners' test anxiety and the Dunning-Kruger effect while seeking metacognition, a research trend that has recently received increased attention. The purpose of the study is to confirm whether test anxiety and the illusion of competency that middle school students gain during written English language exams are real, and to analyze and demonstrate how these variables affect academic performance (midterm/final).
 Methods Test anxiety was measured using the ARTS, a test anxiety scale, among second-grade learners at a coeducational middle school. To verify the Dunning-Kruger effect, a survey was conducted one week before the midterm and final exams to collect expected scores in English subjects. The difference score, the gap between expected and actual scores, was used to confirm metacognitive abilities and the illusion of competence.
 Results It was confirmed that test anxiety has a significant negative effect on academic achievement, and a negative correlation between expected scores and actual scores was also confirmed. The Dunning-Kruger Effect, in which the ‘high’ group underestimated and the ‘low’ group overestimated, was observed in the same way as in previous studies. It was observed that the illusion of competency in the final exam was reduced through the simple procedure and experience of checking their scores on the midterm exam, and it was discovered that metacognition can be learned and improved.
 Conclusions It was confirmed that test anxiety exists among middle school English learners. In the divided quartile groups, the ‘high’ group has low test anxiety but underestimates their abilities, while the ‘low’ and ‘low middle’ groups have high anxiety but are overconfident about their abilities. We propose follow-up research to identify trends that occur regardless of subject or grade, as well as research on educational measures that can relieve test anxiety while remaining humble and accurately assessing one's own status.

Development of the NMR Lexical Representational Competence (NMR-LRC) Instrument As a Formative Assessment of Lexical Ability in 1H NMR Spectroscopy

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra are among the most common visualizations used by chemists in both academic and industrial settings, where they serve as both representations of submicroscopic entities and tools that support social discourse. The ability to use words to communicate about features within NMR spectra is thus an essential aspect of chemists’ representational competence. Collectively, these words constitute a highly specialized language specific to this technique. To adequately prepare chemists, the undergraduate curriculum must therefore cultivate students’ ability to use this lexicon. We developed the NMR Lexical Representational Competence (NMR-LRC) instrument, a formative assessment to measure students’ ability and perceived ability to use words to communicate the identification, analysis, and interpretation of features within 1H NMR spectra. Following development, we administered the NMR-LRC in Spring 2020 to a total of N = 678 second-semester organic chemistry students at a large Midwestern university. We analyzed the responses using the Rasch model to collect statistical evidence of validity and reliability, and we used cluster analysis to evaluate whether the instrument could detect the Dunning–Kruger effect (i.e., students’ illusions of competence). Supporting evidence of response process, content, and associative validity was also collected. The results suggest that data obtained from the NMR-LRC can be interpreted as a measure of students’ lexical representational competence and associated perceived competence in 1H NMR spectroscopy and that the NMR-LRC can detect students’ illusions of such competence. Results further suggest that instructors can use the NMR-LRC to formatively assess their students’ lexical ability and associated perceived ability following instruction, allowing instructors to provide feedback that promotes students’ competence and perceived competence.

The illusion of competence: Increasing self-efficacy in outdoor leaders

The development of self-efficacy from participation in adventure education is consistently viewed as a positive and desirable outcome. However, outdoor leadership training is a context in which self-efficacy enhancement should be approached with caution. Recent research outside the field of outdoor leadership and adventure education has called into question the assumption of a consistently positive relationship between increased selfefficacy and subsequent behavior. Self-efficacy beliefs can be overinflated and result in inappropriate selection of behaviors, acceptance of risk, and decreased performance. This has particular relevance for outdoor leaders because of the dire consequences associated in outdoor settings. Several conditions in outdoor leadership training may contribute to inflated or inaccurate self-efficacy beliefs. These include the overprovision of success, isolated lessons of instruction, and inadequately processed experiences. Solutions to the conditions which create outdoor leaders' illusions of competence include providing a balance of opportunity for failure and success, combining skills in lessons to accurately represent future contexts of application, and the adaptation of metacognitive monitoring interventions to improve students' interpretations of experience and competence.

Illusions of Competence: Using Empirical Research on Undergraduate Study Behaviors to Maximize Law Learning

Recent advances in cognitive science create smarter law learning opportunities for legal education. Legal educators can use empirical research from cognitive and learning science to improve student learning, in turn easing the bumpy transition from college to law school and maintaining confidence. More importantly, legal educators can instill effective learning strategies vital for students’ success in school, the bar exam, and in practice. Some colleges and universities are failing in providing students with robust critical thinking, writing, and learning skills. The lack of foundational skills can create difficult transitions for students when pursuing graduate and professional educations, such as law school.Research shows that students often rely on improvised and ineffective learning strategies like rereading, cramming, and rote memorization, which are especially ill suited to the demands of legal education requiring higher order thinking and analysis. Inversely, retrieval practice, the testing effect, and periodic review create more effective long-term learning and higher order thinking and analytical skills, yet are counter-intuitive and not always used by students. Luckily, help is available: legal educators can leverage cognitive and learning science to maximize law learning.This Article explains how legal educators and students can leverage cognitive science for smarter law learning. It first summarizes key research findings on effective study and learning strategies, and then suggests simple, practical, and easily implemented ways to integrate them into the law school classroom.

Testing facilitates the regulation of subsequent study time

We examined how testing potentiates self-regulated learning and alleviates the foresight bias—an illusion of competence that arises from information being present during study but absent at test—and whether such benefits can transfer to non-tested material. After studying paired associates that varied in difficulty, participants either restudied or were tested on all the pairs (Experiment 1); were tested on only half of the pairs (Experiment 2); or were tested on half of the pairs and restudied the remaining pairs (Experiments 3 and 4). All items were then restudied at participants’ own pace before a final cued-recall test. In Experiment 1, interim tests enhanced the effectiveness of subsequent study time and alleviated the foresight bias, whereas interim restudying had no such benefits. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 demonstrated that such test-potentiated self-regulated learning can transfer to non-tested items if restudied intermixed with items that were tested. The results demonstrate yet another practical benefit of testing and suggest that retrieval practice can foster metacognitive sophistication among learners, serving as an experiencebased debiasing procedure.

The management mythbuster

The management mythbuster

Shyness and Society: The Illusion of Competence

Shyness and Society: The Illusion of Competence

Illusions of competence and overestimation of associative memory for identical items: Evidence from judgments of learning

The relation between subjects' predicted and actual memory performance is a central issue in the domain of metacognition. In the present study, we examined the influence of item similarity and associative strength on judgments of learning (JOLs) in a cued recall task. We hypothesized that encoding fluency would cause a foresight bias, so that subjects would overestimate recall of identical pairs (scale-scale), as compared with strong associates (weight-scale) or unrelated pairs (mask-scale). In Experiment 1, JOLs for identical word pairs were higher than those for related and unrelated pairs, but later recall of identical pairs was lower than recall of related pairs. In Experiment 2, the effect of encoding fluency (inferred from self-paced study time) was examined, and a similar pattern of results was obtained, with subjects spending the least amount of time studying identical pairs. We conclude that overconfidence for identical pairs reflects an assessment of item similarity when JOLs are made, despite associative strength being a better predictor of later retrieval.

Illusions of competence during study can be remedied by manipulations that enhance learners’ sensitivity to retrieval conditions at test

Monitoring one's knowledge during study is susceptible to a foresight bias (Koriat and Bjork, 2005). Judgments of learning (JOLs) are inflated whenever information that is present at study and absent, but solicited, at test, such as the targets in cue-target paired associates, highlights aspects of cues that are less apparent when those cues are presented alone. The present findings demonstrate that foresight bias can be alleviated by study-test experience (Experiment 1), particularly test experience (Experiments 2 and 3), and by delaying JOLs after study (Experiment 4) and that both foresight bias and its alleviation have behavioral consequences, as measured by study time allocation (Experiment 5). Collectively, the findings suggest that overconfidence and misallocation of study time arise from a mismatch that is inherent to education--that the answer is present at study and absent at test--and that alleviating the problem requires creating conditions at study that sensitize learners to retrieval conditions at test.

Illusions of Competence in Monitoring One's Knowledge During Study.

The monitoring of one's own knowledge during study suffers from an inherent discrepancy between study and test situations: Judgments of learning (JOLs) are made in the presence of information that is absent but solicited during testing. The failure to discount the effects of that information when making JOLs can instill a sense of competence during learning that proves unwarranted during testing. Using a paired-associates task, the authors examined aspects of the cue-target relationships that seemed likely contributors to such illusions of competence. These aspects have the potential to create differential strengths of a priori and a posteriori associations, that is, the probability with which a cue, when presented alone, elicits the corresponding target versus the perceived association between the cue and the target when both are present. The authors argue that the former has the greater influence on later recall, whereas the latter has the greater influence on JOLs.

Health promotion in primary care: Physician-patient communication and decision making about prescription medications

To examine health promotion in a primary-care context, we studied perceived and actual communication in 271 consultations between general practitioners and patients in Oxford (England). Although health promotion is a term usually reserved for public-health or wellness programs, a health promotion perspective enriches the examination of communication in physician-patient interactions by emphasizing issues of empowerment, competence and control. Accordingly, we are interested in how communication during medical encounters can improve patients' abilities to exercise appropriate control over their health. A major factor in enabling patients to increase control over their health involves developing their competencies for making decisions and enacting behaviors that can lead to desired, and attainable, health outcomes. This report focuses on communication and decision making about prescription medications, since whether and how to use medications are among the most common and important decisions in which patients can participate. Five instruments were employed to collect data about physicians, patients and their consultations: a Video Analysis, which allowed assessment of actual communication behavior; a Patient Questionnaire designed to gauge perceptions of the encounter and collect demographic information; a Medical-Record Review, which provided information on utilization, diagnosis and treatment; a Telephone Interview, conducted 14 days after the consultation to obtain follow-up information (e.g. experience with the prescribed medication); and a Doctor Questionnaire that focused on attitudes toward consultations and patients. With respect to communication about prescription medications, physicians most frequently mentioned product name (78.2% of consultations) and instructions for use (86.7% of consultations). Patients were extremely passive, rarely offering their opinion or initiating discussion about any aspect of the treatment. We suggest that improving patients' decision-making competencies may require more discussion of benefits and risks, as well as discussion of patients' opinions about the prescribed medications and their abilities to follow through with the treatment plans. The research design proved useful in highlighting discrepancies between perceived and actual communication. Physicians tended to overestimate the extent to which they discussed patients' ability to follow the treatment plan, elicited patients' opinion about the prescribed medication and discussed risks of the medication. And, 24.3% of the patients left the consultation with an ‘illusion of competence’, a belief that important topics had been discussed when, in fact, they had not been mentioned at all. The pattern of results illustrates the complexity of health promotion in primary care, and underscores the importance of attending to both perceived and actual communication in medical encounters.