Four stages of learning

Recently I was doing some research about learning and came across a term that I hadn’t heard before – the hierarchy of competence. It piqued my curiosity and I kept reading. The hierarchy of competence is often visualized as a pyramid with four stages of learning and the goal of the learner is to climb up to the top.

 

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The four stages of learning

Let’s go step-by-step over each of the stages.

1. Unconscious incompetence

This is the lowest level of the pyramid. When we are at this stage, we don’t realize our ignorance. In other words, we don’t know what we don’t know. People are usually at this stage in the very beginning when they start learning something new – a sport, a language, or any other new skill. During this stage, we make many mistakes while being completely unaware of them because we are beginners and we don’t know any better. But the moment when someone points out the mistakes we make or we become aware of them in any other way, we enter the next stage – conscious incompetence.

2. Conscious incompetence

Here we’ve made the transition from complete beginners to the intermediate stage of learning. That is, we start being aware of the mistakes we make and we realize that there is a lot we still don’t know. We start consciously working to improve and to eliminate the mistakes we make and we enter the next stage – conscious competence.

3. Conscious competence

At this stage, we have a strong proficiency in our chosen topic. But while we don’t make the mistakes we used to make, we still need to focus and use a lot of mental effort. In other words, we remember what used to be hard, we know how to make it right, but it still takes a certain amount of mental energy to perform at a high level. However, if we keep repeating long enough the skill we have acquired, it eventually becomes automatic and we enter the last stage of learning – unconscious competence.

4. Unconscious competence

At this stage, we are officially masters in the skill. Not only have we built a high level of proficiency, but we do it so effortlessly that we don’t have to think about it anymore. At this stage, we have built muscle memory and the skill has become automatic. Reaching this stage is the ultimate goal of every learner because performing the skill is now easy and painless. The road to this stage, however, is filled with a lot of hard, and sometimes tedious work, and many people are unwilling to walk it.

Bumps in the road to the unconscious competence stage

When it comes to becoming fluent in English, I’ve seen students who wanted to jump through stages 2 and 3 too quickly and this impatience didn’t serve them well. When they enter stage 2 and start realizing that they make mistakes, many of them get discouraged and frustrated. This frustration slows them down as it often causes fear of speaking, which in turn hinders attention and motivation and takes away from the working memory.

According to recent studies, attention and motivation are crucial in determining the capacity of the working memory someone can have. In other words, the more attention your brain can give to a task, the more working memory you have. But if you start beating yourself over the mistakes you make, you are unable to focus on learning. In such cases it’s important to let go of your inner critic and trust that mistakes are a normal part of the learning process.

When students reach stage 3 (conscious competence), they don’t make the mistakes they had made during stage 2 (conscious incompetence). But because they still have to think about the correct form and focus on not making these mistakes, they often feel tired and sometimes prefer not to engage in a conversation. However, this stage cannot be skipped; it’s an essential part of the road to unconscious competence (stage 4).

Reaching unconscious competence is not the end

Although at this stage we are able to perform our skills automatically, there is still a risk of regression. For example, when we are under a great amount of pressure, we can start doubting our abilities and overthink everything we do. This leads to what scientists call “choking.” Choking under pressure is caused by stress, worry, and anxiety, and results in underperformance in the most important moment.

For example, imagine you had studied for an exam, but you are so stressed right before it that you panic and forget some of the key points that you’d learned. Here is another scenario: you are a talented baseball player (you can choose any sport) and you have a chance to play for a world-class team. You know that this team’s coach is observing you play and he will make his decision based on what he sees at this very moment. You want to perform at your best and, therefore, you start paying attention to every single move you make. But because you start overthinking, you regress to a previous learning stage. Suddenly, you feel like a beginner again and you start making mistakes you haven’t made for a long time. In other words, you choke.

Switching between conscious and unconscious competence

The ability to regress to stage 3 (conscious competence) is actually important as long as it is done in a controlled fashion. Steping back from what you have learned to do automatically, allows you to analyze and possibly improve your moves. This is how you are able to correct anything that needs correction and become even better at your skill.

But this needs to happen after your performance. It’s crucial to be able to remain at stage 4 (unconscious competence) during the most important moments such as exams, sports games, job interviews, etc. To be able to remain at the unconscious competence stage in such moments requires many hours of practice and repetition. Learning what physically happens in your brain will also help you to tackle your behavior and control your thoughts. Remember, there are no shortcuts. Be patient, do the work, and soon you will collect the fruits of your labor.

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Do you know what stage you are at when it comes to your English? What steps are you taking to progress to the next level? Join the conversation by sharing your thoughts in the comment section below. Remember, sharing is caring 😉.

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