Study of Incompetency

By Raymond Morua

December 9, 2009

Study of Incompetency

False intelligence, Plato’s the Allegory of the Cave, ignorance is bliss, all of these pertain to the illusion that many people fall under. Being kept in the dark oddly provides a feeling of contempt, a sort of mental slumber blocking out reality. Many people go through life believing what their told and what they see. This also affects the person’s perception of themselves. Some believe that because they had adhered to the confinements of society that they possess a great amount of knowledge or that they are smarter than they really are. This would be the issue that plagues many students. An article by Erica Goode reports on the study by Dr. David A Dunning highlighting the reality that incompetent people are too incompetent to realize they are incompetent.

Dr. Dunning discusses how many people who are incompetent lack the skills necessary to recognize their incompetence. One example they point out in the article is that people are bad at things that they think they are good at. This can easily be connected to students. Many students go through their academic lives believing that they know how to properly read a text book, or properly know how to study. When in reality their bad habits are slowing them down and keeping them reaching their full potential. The article goes on to claim that the reason for such behavior would be that they can’t recognize their own incompetence.

One example that stood out was when Dr. Dunning was comparing this to his college students. He used the example of how students who failed test would sit in his office for hours trying to explain and champion their wrong answers. This behavior clearly exemplifies the characteristics of an incompetent person. Lacking the ability to recognize and accept your faults and overconfidence are sure fire signs of incompetence. Another fascinating study resulted in the lack of ability of incompetent people to recognize competence in other people. The study consisted of competent and incompetent people grading the grammar test of their peers. The competent people where able to catch mistakes and also revised their own. The incompetent subjects were not able to catch the mistakes of other incompetent people and were unable to recognize the competence of competent people.

The article was very interesting and informative. It is quite amazing how many people are incompetent. I was left with many questions though. Is incompetency a natural trait or is it learned behavior? What can be done to help others overcome this? I even found myself questioning my own competency. I would like to believe that incompetency is a learned trait. Incompetency is definitely a problem with all people not just college students and I believe it can be curved with the improvement of basic learning skills.