Four Stages of Competence

Four Stages of Competence

We all did this, when we first used the computer; we opened ours eyes widely and told

‘Damn, who created this keyboard? It is difficult to find letters’

But now we type in the same QWERTY keyboard without looking in to the keyboard…

How did we do that?

We could able to do it because we have followed the four stages of competence to become competent in typing…

What are four stages of competence?

Four stages of competence is one of the learning models and initially described as ‘Four Stages for Learning Any New Skill’, the theory was given by Gordon Training International in the 1970s.

Four stages are:

Unconscious Incompetence:

·        We don’t know what we don’t know.

·        We are not aware that we have a particular deficiency in the area concerned.

Conscious Incompetence:

·        We know what we don’t know.

·        We also aware of our deficiency in the area concerned.

Conscious Competence:

·        We know what we know. It takes effort to do it.

·        We will need to concentrate and think in order to perform the skill.

Unconscious Competence:

·        We know what we know and can do it without thinking.

·        The skill becomes so practiced that it enters the unconscious parts of the brain – it becomes ‘second nature’.

Good example to explain this model is process of learning to drive a car.

Initially we observe our parents or others driving a car and think how easy it looks. In this stage of Unconscious Incompetence, we don’t know what we don’t know, so we assume that the driving car is easy because others are driving effortlessly.

Then we take driving classes and suddenly we will understand that there are lots of things to be stored in mind to control the car and there are many more things to learn. In this stage of Conscious Incompetence, we know what we don’t know.

As our learning continuous, we will put more effort to drive the car. If we see the Red light, we will ask our mind to instruct legs to apply break, then the breaks are applied. During the whole process we will be more conscious on doing the task and learning. In this stage of Conscious Competence, We know what we know. We take more effort to do it.

After our conscious driving for some days, now we have reached the final stage called Unconscious Competence, there by acquiring ‘second nature’. Now we are competent to drive the car, now if we see the speed breaker, automatically our legs move and will apply break. In this stage, we know what we know and can do it without thinking.

Now we know how we learn new skills?

If you are learning any new skills like foreign language, embroidery, tailoring, driving, singing, dancing etc… just check you are in which stage?

If you are in Conscious Incompetence stage, move to Conscious Competence stage and put effort to learn the things.

If you are in Conscious Competence stage, in this stage you will take more time to learn, but don’t stop till you reach Unconscious Incompetence stage.

For those who are still thinking of what am I learning? Or what I need to learn? You are in first stage of Unconscious Incompetence, so find out what you don’t know and move to next stage.

We have Unconscious Competence in many fields like driving, typing, swimming etc… and there are many new skills out there, which we may like to learn, so let’s find out and learn new things. If you have learnt some new skill, please share and teach others.

Happy learning…

Yours,

Jeevan