Four stages of competence

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In psychology, the four stages of competence, or the "conscious competence" learning model relates to the psychological states involved in the process of progressing from incompetence to competence in a skill.

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[edit] History

The conscious competence theory is another name for the "Four Stages of Learning," a theory posited by 1940's psychologist Abraham Maslow. The Four Stages of Learning are an explanation of how people learn something, progressing from 1. Unconscious Incompetence (you don't know that you don't know something), to 2. Conscious Incompetence (you are now aware that you are incompetent at something), to 3. Conscious Competence (you develop a skill in that area but have to think about it), to the final stage 4. Unconscious Competence (you are good at it and it now comes naturally).

Several elements, including helping people 'know what they don't know' or recognize their blind spots, can be compared to some elements of a Johari window (although Johari deals with self-awareness; while the four stages of competence deals with learning stages).

US Gordon Training International organization has played a role in defining and promoting the conscious competence theory. According to Linda Adams, president of Gordon Training International, the "Learning Stages (model) i.e., unconsciously unskilled, consciously unskilled, consciously skilled, unconsciously skilled ... was developed by one of our employees and course developers (Noel Burch) in the 1970's and first appeared in our Teacher Effectiveness Training Instructor Guide in the early 70's." However, given Maslow's earlier development of the theory it is likely that GTI primarily advanced and further developed the model instead of inventing it.

[edit] The Four Stages

  1. Unconscious Incompetence
    The individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it.
  2. Conscious Incompetence
    Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it.
  3. Conscious Competence
    The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires a great deal of consciousness or concentration.
  4. Unconscious Competence
    The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes "second nature" and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). He or she may or may not be able teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.

Natural language is an example of unconscious competence. Not every native speaker who can understand and be understood in a language is competent to teach it. Distinguishing between unconscious competence for performance-only, versus unconscious competence with the ability to teach, the term "kinesthetic competence" is sometimes used for the ability to perform but not to teach, while "theoretic competence" refers to the ability to do both.

Certain brain personality types favor certain skills (see the Benziger theory), and each individual possesses different natural strengths and preferences. Therefore, advancing from, say, stage 3 to 4 in one skill might be easier for one person than for another. Certain individuals will even resist progression to stage 2, because they refuse to acknowledge or accept the relevance and benefit of a particular skill or ability. Individuals develop competence only after they recognize the relevance of their own incompetence in the skill concerned.

[edit] Possible Fifth Stage

Many attempts have been made to add to this competence model. This addition would be a fifth stage, and there have been many different suggestions for what this fifth stage would be called. One suggestion is that it be called "Conscious competence of unconscious competence". This would describe a person's ability to recognize and develop unconscious competence in others.

Another suggestion by consultant David Baume:

As a fifth level, I like what I call 'reflective competence'. As a teacher, I thought "If unconscious competence is the top level, then how on earth can I teach things I'm unconsciously competent at?" I didn't want to regress to conscious competence - and I'm not sure if I could even I wanted to! So, reflective competence - a step beyond unconscious competence. Conscious of my own unconscious competence, yes, as you suggest. But additionally looking at my unconscious competence from the outside, digging to find and understand the theories and models and beliefs that clearly, based on looking at what I do, now inform what I do and how I do it. These won't be the exact same theories and models and beliefs that I learned consciously and then became unconscious of. They'll include new ones, the ones that comprise my particular expertise. And when I've surfaced them, I can talk about them and test them. Nonaka is good on this
—Nonaka, I. (1994). "A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation." Organization Science 5: 14-37. (David Baume, May 2004)

[edit] See also

[edit] Similar Models for Personal Change and Learning Process

[edit] Sources

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