{"id":42435,"date":"2026-05-13T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=42435"},"modified":"2026-05-13T14:14:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T21:14:32","slug":"most-people-dont-know-what-they-dont-know-but-think-they-do-correcting-your-metaknowledge-can-make-you-a-better-teacher-and-learner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/most-people-dont-know-what-they-dont-know-but-think-they-do-correcting-your-metaknowledge-can-make-you-a-better-teacher-and-learner\/","title":{"rendered":"Most people don\u2019t know what they don\u2019t know, but think they do \u2013 correcting your metaknowledge can make you a better teacher and learner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tommy Blanchard<\/a>, Tufts University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you know what the Apple logo looks like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chances are, you think you do. It\u2019s ubiquitous and iconic. How could you not know it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when tested, it turns out very few people can remember<\/a> all the features of the logo. One study of 85 people found that only about half could pick the correct logo out of a lineup of similar ones. And only one person could correctly draw it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t an isolated example. A classic study from 1979 found that people similarly couldn\u2019t draw a penny accurately<\/a> or pick out a correctly drawn penny from incorrect ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People aren\u2019t just bad at remembering things they see all the time, but also in actually knowing how they work. In a 2006 study, many people made significant errors when drawing a bicycle<\/a>, like putting the chain around the front wheel as well as the back wheel. More than just a forgotten detail, putting the chain around both wheels shows a deeper misunderstanding of how a bicycle works. A bicycle with a chain around both wheels wouldn\u2019t be able to turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Illustration
Do you truly know how a bicycle works? Al2\/Grandiose via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It turns out people\u2019s knowledge of how the world works is often fragmented and sketchy at best. They systematically overestimate their understanding<\/a> of everyday devices and natural phenomena. People will tend to give themselves high ratings on how well they understand something, such as how bicycles or zippers work. But when they\u2019re asked to actually explain the mechanics of these objects, their ratings of their understanding typically drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like how your knowledge of the world around you is imperfect, your knowledge about your own knowledge \u2013 also called metaknowledge<\/a> \u2013 is often flawed. My field of cognitive science<\/a> has been uncovering various gaps in human metaknowledge for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If people are systematically overconfident about how well they understand things, why don\u2019t they notice when they don\u2019t understand something? And what can people do to better recognize the limits of their own knowledge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why you think you know more than you do<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Researchers have identified several factors behind people\u2019s overconfidence in their knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One is that people confuse environmental support with understanding<\/a>: The information is out in the world but not actually in your head. With a bicycle or a zipper, all of the parts are visible to you, and you may confuse this transparency for an internal understanding of how they work. But until you go to use that knowledge by attempting to explain how they work, you may not recognize that you don\u2019t understand how those parts interact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second factor is confusing different levels of analysis<\/a>. People can often describe how something works at a very high level. You know that the engine of a car makes the car go, and the brakes slow and stop the vehicle. But confidence in your high-level understanding of the car may bias you to think you also have a good grasp of the finer details, like how the engine pistons and brake pads work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, people can be blind to the ways their knowledge shapes their own perception. In one study, researchers had participants tap out the tune to a popular song<\/a>. On average, the tappers thought listeners would be able to identify the song about 50% of the time. But when listeners had to identify the tapped song, they actually could identify it only 2.5% of the time. The tappers didn\u2019t realize how much their knowledge was making identifying the song seem easy to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Intellectual humility can help you see your expert blind spot. Vitaly Gariev\/Unsplash<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This disconnect has consequences beyond whether someone else can understand your Morse code version of a song. When teaching people, whether in formal classroom settings or through casual mentorship, you can sometimes have an expert blind spot<\/a>: the inability to recognize the difficulties beginners face when learning something you have expertise in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building expertise often involves internalizing knowledge to the point where it becomes invisible to you. You draw on knowledge you don\u2019t realize you have, making it hard to relate to learners who lack this knowledge \u2013 and, of course, hard for learners<\/a> to relate to your teaching. You might have experienced this when you\u2019ve gotten partway through explaining something, only to realize you\u2019ve been using jargon you forgot isn\u2019t common knowledge and lost your listener.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to address metaknowledge failures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Your metaknowledge can fail in two directions: You can think you know more than you do, and you can be blind to how much you\u2019re relying on knowledge you do have. Each calls for a different response to correct it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019re overconfident in your knowledge, the remedy is using that knowledge. You\u2019ll quickly realize how much you actually understand and dial down your confidence. Challenging yourself to actually try to walk through how something works is a great exercise in intellectual humility<\/a> \u2013 that is, recognizing that you may be wrong \u2013 and can keep you from getting out over your skis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building a greater appreciation for what you know is more difficult. You can\u2019t simply unlearn what you\u2019ve internalized. But what this challenge shows is that, to some extent, knowing a subject and knowing how to teach<\/a> it are two separate skills. Some experts are great teachers, but not simply by virtue of being experts. Recognizing that you have to approach teaching with humility, and that your expertise doesn\u2019t automatically make you a skilled teacher, can go a long way toward making you a better teacher and mentor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These aren\u2019t easy and quick fixes to failures of metaknowledge. Both require ongoing intellectual humility and a willingness to distrust your own confidence. But acknowledging the fallibility of your own metaknowledge is a good place to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tommy Blanchard<\/a>, Research Associate in Cognitive Science, Tufts University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tommy Blanchard, Tufts University Do you know what the Apple logo looks like? Chances are, you think you do. It\u2019s ubiquitous and iconic. How could you not know it? But when tested, it turns out very few people can remember all the features of the logo. One study of 85 people found that only about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":42436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8025,42,10,36,3410,38],"tags":[3265,3170,366,2001,16013,6349,17759,13637,5815,885,891,886,860,17303,10755,2042],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42437,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42435\/revisions\/42437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}