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Unskilled and unaware: second-order judgments increase with miscalibration for low performers
Mariana Veiga Chetto Coutinho1, Justin Thomas2, Imani Fredricks-Lowman3
1Department of Cognitive Sciences, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
Frontiers in Psychology
|July 2, 2024
Summary
Low performers often overestimate their abilities because they lack awareness of their poor performance. This study found that less accurate self-estimates correlated with higher confidence in accuracy for low performers.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Educational Psychology
Background:
- Overestimation and miscalibration in performance assessments are linked to a decrease in participant knowledge and skills.
- The ability to perform well is thought to correlate with the ability to accurately self-evaluate, suggesting that lack of knowledge leads to both poor performance and unawareness of that deficit.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the extent to which students at varying performance levels recognize biases in their self-estimates.
- To clarify the relationship between performance, self-estimation accuracy (miscalibration), and confidence in those estimates (second-order judgments).
Main Methods:
- Surveyed 653 college students on their exam performance estimates and confidence in those estimates (second-order judgments).
- Analyzed the relationship between miscalibration and second-order judgments across performance quartiles.
Main Results:
- A negative relationship was found between miscalibration and second-order judgments for high performers.
- A positive relationship was observed for low performers: greater miscalibration was associated with higher confidence in self-estimates.
- Findings suggest awareness of knowledge gaps is dependent on the level of knowledge itself.
Conclusions:
- Low performers' overconfidence may stem from an inability to recognize their own errors, supporting the knowledge-awareness hypothesis.
- Metacognitive judgments, particularly second-order judgments, reveal differing levels of self-awareness across performance spectrums.
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