Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Conscious Competence Ladder

The Conscious Competence Ladder is a learning model used to identify what an individual’s competence level is on a learning scale. The Conscious Competence Ladder of learning infers that an individual will climb the ladder as they acquire and build expertise in a new area.


Level 1 – Unconscious Incompetence
At this level the individual does not understand or realize that they are lacking in a competence area.


Level 2 – Conscious Incompetence
At this level the individual realizes that there are skills and knowledge that they need to acquire and that there are others that are competent in this skill.

Level 3 – Conscious Competence
At this level the individual has acquired new skills and knowledge, is putting it into practice and is consciously refining this skill/knowledge.

Level 4 – Unconscious Competence
At this level the individual has become unaware of their skill because it is performed in an automatic way.

Attempts have been made to add a Level 5 to the Conscious Competence Ladder. Level 5 has been described in several different ways. One way is as “conscious competence of unconscious competence”, which describes a person’s ability to recognize and develop unconscious incompetence in others. Nonaka (1994) indirectly describes a possible Level 5 as “reflective competence”, which is the appraisal of one’s own skills and knowledge. Within “reflective competence” an individual searchers for a depth of information that builds off their existing competency base.

If you were to imagine a Level 5 what would it be?

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