More about confidence based Learning (CBL)

·         Uninformed

This can be considered knowledge that a learner has not acquired yet. Someone who is uninformed is unlikely to act, which can result in a state of paralysis.

·         Misinformation

This can be considered knowledge a learner confidently believes to                     be correct, but which is actually incorrect. Those who have confidence in wrong information (misinformation) will very likely make mistakes on the job, which puts companies at the most risk.

·         Doubt

Occurs where a learner believes knowledge to be correct, but an element of doubt exists that may cause the learner not to act on that knowledge. Someone who harbors doubt may correctly answer in a test, but is likely to act with hesitation or not act at all.

·         Mastery

This is knowledge a learner knows confidently that is correct, and which will likely be applied correctly in practice. Learners who have correct knowledge and a high degree of confidence in their knowledge (mastery) are masters of that knowledge domain. These learners are likely to act correctly, resulting in higher performing and more productive learners who make fewer mistakes. (Confidence is key and should be considered relative to positive experiential neural imprinting).

four stages of competence

In psychology, the four stages of competence, or the "conscious competence" learning model relates to the psychological states involved in the process of progressing from incompetence to competence in a skill.

·         Unconscious Incompetence

The individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it.


·         Conscious Incompetence

Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it.


·         Conscious Competence

The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires a great deal of consciousness or concentration.


·         Unconscious Competence

The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes "second nature" and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). He or she may or may not be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.


Natural language is an example of unconscious competence. Not every native speaker who can understand and be understood in a language is competent to teach it. Distinguishing between unconscious competence for performance-only, versus unconscious competence with the ability to teach, the term "kinesthetic competence" is sometimes used for the ability to perform but not to teach, while "theoretic competence" refers to the ability to do both.

Certain brain personality types favor certain skills (see the Benziger theory), and each individual possesses different natural strengths and preferences. Therefore, advancing from, say, stage 3 to 4 in one skill might be easier for one person than for another. Certain individuals will even resist progression to stage 2, because they refuse to acknowledge or accept the relevance and benefit of a particular skill or ability. Individuals develop competence only after they recognize the relevance of their own incompetence in the skill concerned.

Many attempts have been made to add to this competence model. This addition would be a fifth stage, and there have been many different suggestions for what this fifth stage would be called. One suggestion is that it be called "Conscious competence of unconscious competence". This would describe a person's ability to recognize and develop unconscious competence in others.

Another suggestion by consultant David Baume:

As a fifth level, I like what I call 'reflective competence'. As a teacher, I thought "If unconscious competence is the top level, then how on earth can I teach things I'm unconsciously competent at?" I didn't want to regress to conscious competence - and I'm not sure if I could even if I wanted to! So, reflective competence - a step beyond unconscious competence. Conscious of my own unconscious competence, yes, as you suggest. But additionally looking at my unconscious competence from the outside, digging to find and understand the theories and models and beliefs that are clearly, based on looking at what I do, now inform what I do and how I do it. These won't be the exact same theories and models and beliefs that I learned consciously and then became unconscious of. They'll include new ones, the ones that comprise my particular expertise. And when I've surfaced them, I can talk about them and test them. Nonaka is good on this

—Nonaka, I. (1994). "A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation." Organization Science 5: 14-37. (David Baume, May 2004)