How to Break the Illusion of Competence
We don’t know what we don’t know
I’m completely familiar with the feeling of sitting down for an exam after a good week of studying, take it with extreme confidence, and be sure that I’d ace it.
Only to do the exact opposite.
How the fuck did that happen?!
I read the textbook. Highlighted all the important bits. Wrote a study guide. Did the review questions at the end of the chapter. Which all amounted to not being worth it. For the longest time I had no idea why that was the case. I knew that I was doing it right. At least, that’s what all my teachers made me believe.
You have to sit down, read the textbook, and write notes to do well in this class.
For years, YEARS! I thought I was awful at taking exams. I’d tell myself
Oh, tests just aren’t my thing.
I’m a more hands-on person.
This all broke down once I discovered the illusion of competence.
The Illusion of Competence
The concept is straight forward. The idea is that I was tricking myself into believing I knew the material, when in reality, I did not.
How could this be? I studied hard.
Well, I was doing it wrong. I was also relying on the wrong form of memory as well. I was using my ability to recognize information.
Recognition is not the same as learning. Recognition is your ability to use information presented to you to trigger your memory to retrieve the answer. This is why multiple choice questions are easier. They give your brain a bump in the right direction.
Passive Learning
My habit of relying on recognition was a result of my studying techniques. All of the techniques that I used were passive.
Passive learning techniques are less effective because they do not require you to recall information.
Sadly, you can’t just learn through osmosis.
Passive learning techniques include:
- Reading a textbook
- Listening to a lecture
- Rewriting notes
Active Learning
The focus of active learning is to ensure that recall is used rather than recognition. Recall is important because it requires you to retrieve information without any trigger.
This is important for tests that include short answers and essays. Rather than having to rely on the question and prompt to jog your memory, you can use recall to just get what you know from your head.
Being able to recall information means that you’ve learned it.
Active learning techniques include:
- Summarizing a chapter in your own words
- Reciting the key points of a lecture from memory
- Reading and attempting to recall what you just read
Closing Thoughts
Don’t let your learning habits fool you. You can only know if you’ve learned something if you’re able to recall the information without any contextual clues.
Hey! Tell me more about your study habits in the comments. If you’ve enjoyed this article send some 👏 my way! If you didn’t, that’s cool too! Follow me if you want. Enjoy yourself!
If you want more content about learning. Check out this article about the book Learning How to Learn: A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley
