I’ve been teaching writing for over 20 years now, so I do a lot of in-depth grading, and I was surprised to see an inverse relationship between projected confidence and ability. Students who are uncertain and humble tend to use support, ask more questions, and spend more time on assignments. And, they tend to get good grades. Students who think they already know everything tend to write last minute and tend to get poor grades.
But humility and uncertainty tend not to be rewarded in our larger culture.
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Many students will simply not participate in class discussions no matter what the incentives are. Even in small classes, even when it is made clear that it will have a significant impact on their grade, even when otherwise they do everything they can to help their grade, many students can simply not be induced to talk in class.
This is basically what the Dunning-Kruger effect is talking about.
One reason that humility and uncertainty are not rewarded is because the humble and uncertain person doesn’t even put their work forward for others to see, or they don’t even finish it, whereas the overconfident person is constantly telling people how awesome their work is, and how everyone should (and does) admire their work. They say you can’t win if you don’t play. The uncertain person often won’t even play.
I’ve been working as an editor over 20 years, and confidence makes a huge difference in success.
In the long-run, it is the less-skilled, less-self-critical, more over-confident person who succeeds, because they keep on trying. And, because they keep trying, despite their over-confidence, they learn something along the way, and thus they improve. The uncertain person often quits and stops getting better.
A good mix of confidence and self-doubt is where the best work is done.
“Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine.”
Students who don’t submit the assignments typically do not do well in class. This seems to be a big surprise to them. I’m not sure why.