Categories: Education

Conscious Competence for Educators, Trainers & Students

Conscious Competence as a Value Proposition

If you are an experienced educator, trainer or instructor, you may invariably agree that a good way to start off a training class is to show your students that you care for them – sympathize with them. You may say you know they are at tremendous inconvenience to come to your class, and to thank them for traveling so far to see you. How you further break the ice is all up to you. It depends on your skill as an engaging teacher. But after these polite acts of introduction some students may still give you a cold hard stare – and that stare says: “I don’t want to be here.”

At this point it would be great to hand students wads of cash as a means of piquing interest. However, assuming your education budget doesn’t allow for such subsidy, perhaps the next best thing is to offer students their due “WIIFM” – What’s in it for me?

Conscious Competence provides several obvious benefits both for the trainer and for those being trained. The idea behind offering these benefits is to impart value in education and to have the student walk away as an embodiment of value.

What Is Conscious Competence?

Conscious Competence refers to the level of ability (or inability) by which one may perform a task. This task can be anything, from something abstract such as planning a framework for writing a report, all the way to the execution of a physical task such as the operation of a jackhammer.

The concept of Conscious Competence is not a new idea in itself, and has been tossed around in purely academic circles since the 1980s. The purpose of this discussion is to walk away from heavy academic discussion and to introduce Conscious Competence as a simple concept and to suggest its use as a possible practical tool by which instructors and students may gauge progress in learning.

What Is The Conscious Competence Matrix?

The Conscious Competence Matrix (CCM) is the concept of Conscious Competence fleshed out into a usable high-level practical form.

The CCM consists of a four-level framework that uses two criteria – consciousness and competence – to determine a level of proficiency someone has in performing a task or operation. These Four Levels of Conscious Competence delineate milestones of progress whereby students start at a bottom level of relative inability (incompetence) and rise upward to a top level of full ability (competence).

Conscious Competence – What’s It Good For?

The Conscious Competence Matrix provides several obvious benefits for both trainer and students:

– Provides Common Ground for Agreement

– Provides Gauge for Learning Progress

– Emulates “Chunking” of Manageable Learning Content

These benefits are discussed in further detail here.

BENEFIT: The Conscious Competence Matrix Provides Common Ground for Agreement

Everyone knows that progress cannot be made among trainers and students if they do not agree as to how they can effectively communicate. As a visual tool to which both the student and the teacher may refer to throughout training as needed, the Conscious Competence Matrix provides the instructor and student this much-needed common viewpoint by which to gauge progress.

At the beginning of training the trainer may introduce the Conscious Competence Matrix (as depicted by IMAGE 1 and IMAGE 2) as an agreed object-oriented roadmap for progress.

BENEFIT: The Conscious Competence Matrix as a Gauge for Learning Progress

Assuming people (whether they are students or trainers) are able to more easily grasp concepts through pictographic representations, the Conscious Competence Matrix is an excellent object-oriented tool which can be used as a training aid (for the trainer) and a kind of roadmap of learning (for the student).

– For the trainer – Assuming the trainer is indeed a master of a skill (or set of skills), the Conscious Competence matrix can provide a “downwards looking” training aid that will help the trainer empathize with their students in their position of relative ignorance. Likewise it serves as a tool showing the trainer’s progress in the course they are teaching.

– For the student – The Conscious Competence matrix can provide a “upwards looking” roadmap of learning through which they will have to navigate until they reach the top. Upon arriving at the top they will have developed a level of competence in the skills they have come to learn.

See IMAGE 1, which indicates that students start off at the bottom in a state of “incompetence” (relative ignorance). At the end of their training, hopefully they will have risen to a level of “competence” (mastery) set forth by their trainer.

The boxes (numbered 1 through 4) in IMAGE 1 refer to the Levels of Conscious Competence through which students will rise until they reach full competence at a level approaching that of their instructor’s.

BENEFIT: The Conscious Competence Matrix Emulates Information Mapping Structure & “Chunking” of Manageable Learning Content

The four upwards-reaching levels of progress provide instructional designers and trainers milestone opportunities to have students learn skills in a structured (information mappable) and manageable set of progressive steps. These steps emulate high-level pieces of knowledge in concordance with the “chunking” theory of learning design, whereby students are offered knowledge in small and easily identified portions.

Assumptions

Before delving into the precepts of the Conscious Competence Matrix, some assumptions and definitions must be made clear:

– Student perspective: For the sake of imparting value to the final recipient of education, this discussion is primarily student-centric. Please bear in mind that some discussion could also just as easily be biased to an instructor’s (or instructional designer’s) perspective.

– Competence: The word “competence” is used here to refer to a level of knowledge needed to enable one to perform an operation or task.

– Incompetence: The term “incompetence” refers to one’s lack of knowledge needed to perform an operation or task.

– Conscious: This discussion assumes “conscious” means a level of awareness necessary for one to acknowledge the presence (or lack) of a desired or agreed upon skill level or attribute.

– Unconscious: Likewise this discussion refers to “unconscious” as a level of awareness whereby one is unable to acknowledge the presence (or lack) of a desired or agreed upon skill level or attribute.

– Level of student competence: This discussion assumes that the student starts off at the lowest level of competence, defined later as “unconscious incompetence”.

– Level of instructor competence: Likewise this discussion assumes that the instructor is an embodiment of full educational value represented by the CCM’s highest level of competence – Level 4 as unconscious competence. For demonstrative purposes, this discussion also sometimes associates this level of instructor competence with “mastery”.

The Four Levels of the Conscious Competence Matrix

The backbone of the CCM is its Four Levels. As the student rises from incompetence to nominal competence, the corresponding level of progress rises numerically also, from Levels 1 to 4. See IMAGE 2 while reading below:

– Level 1: Unconscious Incompetence – The student is not aware of a particular skill or set of skills, and is not aware of its relevance or value. See IMAGE 3 and IMAGE 4 for representations of the psychological state and the kind of catch phrases a student may emulate at this level. To jump from this level to the next, the instructor will require agreement from the student to see evidence of the relevance and value of the skills the instructor is teaching. See discussion about agreements in the benefits section.

– Level 2: Conscious Incompetence – The student has learned of the existence of a particular skill or set of skills, is aware of its relevance or value, yet has not yet learned the skill(s) in question. See IMAGE 3 and IMAGE 4 for representations of the psychological state and the kind of catch phrases a student may emulate at this level. To jump from this level to the next, the instructor will require agreement from the student for actual skills training. See discussion about agreements in the benefits section.

– Level 3: Conscious Competence – The student has learned the skill(s) in question, and their execution of such skill is done in a deliberate or conscious manner. See IMAGE 3 and IMAGE 4 for representations of the psychological state and the kind of catch phrases a student may emulate at this level. Many instruction pieces end their instruction here, and leave further training up to the student in the form of self study orpractice. Under these circumstances, the student may continue training under self-study to jump from this level to the next. See discussion about agreements in the benefits section.

– Level 4: Unconscious Competence – The student has learned the skill(s) in question, and their execution of such skill is done without conscious effort, deliberate thinking, or the action associated with the skill is done in an unconscious manner (“2^nd nature”). See IMAGE 3 and IMAGE 4 for representations of the psychological state and the kind of catch phrases a student may emulate at this level.

Levels 1 and 2 reside in the realm of incompetence, whereas Levels 3 and 4 reside in the realm of competence. As learning progresses,

Measuring Progress in Learning against the Four Levels of the CCM

The scope of this discussion is merely to introduce the concept of Conscious Competence and to suggest CCM’s four levels as markers in student learning progress.

Much discussion exists elsewhere as to methodologies to determine student progress, and such methodologies may be administered in any form such as oral or written tests, examinations, term papers, etc., and are up to the discretion of the entity providing the training as well as any regulatory agencies to which they are subject. While using the CCM’s four levels as markers or queues to student learning progress, translating them into actual measurable milestones is at the option of the trainer and training entity.