The Curse of Knowledge

Every professors has faced this question; why do my students not understand such an obvious concept? Anton and Ursula presented an excellent workshop at Professional and Organizational Development Conference that can help faculty understand why. First, our students are not us. We have a special knowledge in our expertise in our field. Elizabeth Newton demonstrated the curse of knowledge in a 1990 study. Participants in her study formed dyads. One participant was a "tapper" and the other participant was a "listener". The tapper was to tap out the rhythm of a well known song and the listener was to guess what the song was. Before tapping out the songs, the tapper predicted how many songs the listener would correctly guess. The tappers predicted the listeners would get 50% of the songs correct; that is 1 in 2 songs. The participants grossly overestimated. The listeners got only 1 out 40 songs correct. The tappers had a natural reaction; How could the listeners not get such an easy song? It is a temptation to ask, as many of the tappers did, how could the listeners be so stupid. Everyone has heard Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It is obvious what I am tapping.

This brings me to a second point. The question "how could the listeners be so stupid" leads to an error. In fact, psychologists call it the fundamental attribution error. Humans make attributions, or judgments, about why other people behavior certain ways. Humans can make an external attribution; something from the environment is responsible the person's behavior. For example, you  talk to your friend Sally in the hall; She is sad and distracted. She tells you she just learned her mother has cancer. Thus, the sadness is caused by an external factor - learning her mother has cancer. Or humans can make an internal attribution, an internal characteristic or trait about another person. You noticed Sally is sad; therefore, you could make an internal attribution and assume she has depression. Quite often the internal attribution is incorrect; thus, the term fundamental attribution error. For a professor, implication is important for understanding student behavior. Why did this student not read, or why did this student turn in subpar work? Professors might be tempted to think the student is lazy or too stupid for this class. This would be engaging in the fundamental error, much like the flabbergasted tappers in the experiment above. Faculty developers have noted the importance of considering situational variables students when designing a course. It might be wise to also consider situational factors when students perform poorly on exams or assignments; it might also help professors to think of  adaptive solution for helping students perform better in the classes rather than dismissing students as lazy or stupid.

For another example of the Curse of Knowledge, click on the clip below of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory.
Big Bang Video