Assessments of the extent of knowledge in a domain can be important since non-identified lack of knowledge may lead to decisions that do not consider the effect of relevant factors. Two studies examined experts’ and novices’ perception of their own ignorance and knowledge out of everything there is to know within their own and other disciplines and their assessments of their discipline’s, and other disciplines’ knowledge of all there is to know in each discipline.
In total 380 experts and 401 students from the disciplines of history, medicine, physics, and psychology participated. The results for ignorance and knowledge assessments of one’s own knowledge were similar. Novices reported more ignorance and less knowledge in their own discipline than experts,
but no differences were found in the assessments of how much is known in each discipline. General belief in certainty of knowledge was associated with the knowledge assessments and level of expertise. Finally, disciplinary differences were found both for the knowledge assessments and for belief in certainty of knowledge.
Historians and physicists assessed that less was known in their own discipline out of all there is to know (approximately 40%), compared to the medics (about 50%). Historians believed least in certainty of knowledge and physicists most. Our results have practical implications for higher educational teaching and interdisciplinary collaboration.
In order for people to make good judgments and decisions it is often important for them to consider the extent of their own and others’ knowledge about the deliberated issue. Generally speaking, lack of knowledge implies uncertainty in judgments and a risk that the decision made is wrong (Edwards and Tversky, 1967),
for example because the decision does not consider the effect of all relevant factors. Previous research has studied people’s knowledge assessments in fairly limited contexts (e.g., the extent of their knowledge in the area covered by a university test to be taken),
but in real life any factors that influence events may be relevant to consider, irrespective of if these factors have been previously identified or not. It is therefore important to improve our understanding of broader knowledge assessments relating to all there is to know in an area.
