tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1766480662363186608.post3770109773103226656..comments2023-10-15T08:33:17.704-04:00Comments on What People Know: Informed vs Feeling InformedHollanderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07388479139384630638noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1766480662363186608.post-43777889672222516242008-08-23T12:25:00.000-04:002008-08-23T12:25:00.000-04:00incompetent people are more likely to be incompete...<I>incompetent people are more likely to be incompetent at evaluating the reality of their incompetence.</I><BR/><BR/>Heh heh, yeah, there's probably some self-esteem maintenance thing going on as well. The schools seem to spend a lot of time building self-esteem, more so than is probably wise. I always figure my job as a professor is to lower their self esteem.Hollanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07388479139384630638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1766480662363186608.post-20129983823430272592008-08-22T19:03:00.000-04:002008-08-22T19:03:00.000-04:00This reminds me of some research in psychology on ...This reminds me of some research in psychology on competence. Specifically, incompetent people are more likely to be incompetent at evaluating the reality of their incompetence.<BR/><BR/>Researchers had participants do various tasks, one of which was to take a grammar quiz. Then participants estimated how well they did. Then they graded the quizzes of others.<BR/><BR/>Folks who did well on the quiz were more likely to underestimate their performance, but came closer in magnitude to estimating their true performance than folks who had done poorly. Folks who did badly on the quiz were more likely to overestimate their performance. <BR/><BR/>After grading someone else's paper, those who had done well on the grammar quiz came closer to estimating their true performance. After grading someone else's paper, those who did badly on the quiz came no closer to estimating their true performance.<BR/><BR/>I see this in students. Good students are often aware of how much they do not know. Bad students are often not aware of how much they do not know.<BR/><BR/>Usually bad students do not come in for help. But when they do, a bad student might say, "I did pretty good on the multiple-choice practice test." And after we look over the practice test, I'll say something like the following.<BR/><BR/>"It looks like you scored a 50%. Now that is a big improvement on the 25% that you would have scored by choosing randomly among these multiple choice answers. But that is an 'F' and I doubt that is what you're shooting for."<BR/><BR/>"Oh! Did I do that badly?"<BR/><BR/>Last semester a student sent me an email which said, "I have a 'C' in your course, but I am an 'A' student." <BR/><BR/>I did not think this student was even that good. I checked. He had two grades--D's. I checked further and that found both of his tests were still in the pile of tests which had not been claimed by students.John Arkwrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14724588347915809218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1766480662363186608.post-85990224053787067372008-08-22T12:39:00.000-04:002008-08-22T12:39:00.000-04:00Well, if you look at pages 43-44 of the report, al...Well, if you look at pages 43-44 of the report, along with the table, it's a bit different. what makes Colbert/Stewart audienes unique in their knowledge is that the audience is relatively young, but younger people tend to do less well on political knowledge tests.<BR/><BR/>The top 4 on a "high knowledge" score were (1) Atlantic/New Yorker readers, (2) NPR listeners, (3)Hardball viewers, and (4) Hannity and Colmes viewers. Limbaugh listeners were #7, followed by Colbert viewers.<BR/><BR/>What's interesting is the table which gives the interplay of education and age. Hannity and Colmes does remarkably well given only 31% of its audience has a college degree. Viewers outscore readers of biz magazines, of which 60% have college degrees.<BR/><BR/>Another weird one: readers of news mags don't do very well despite having a high college grad reader rate.<BR/><BR/>Only 30% of Daily Show viewers scored in the "high knowledge" group, but it and Colbert watchers are the youngest recorded in the survey.<BR/><BR/>The only way to really do this is have the raw data.Hollanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07388479139384630638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1766480662363186608.post-83028594046613648112008-08-22T12:15:00.000-04:002008-08-22T12:15:00.000-04:00is that really the case though? Didn't that Pew s...is that really the case though? Didn't that Pew survey say that the most informed people tended to be the ones who watched Daily Show or listened to Rush?<BR/>Or maybe by "silly" you mean Letterman or E! News.bethanyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08163733354894909762noreply@blogger.com