Hunter Pedagogy: Why the Unskilled are Unaware

The other day, I was re-reading a popular essay, titled Why the Unskilled Are Unaware: Further Explorations of (Absent) Self-Insight Among the Incompetent (here), which got me thinking about some of the requests for hunter help I get, on this sight or in general forums.

The common request tends to be something like: "I'm doing my rotation right so I know that's not the problem; will you look at my gear to tell me how to do more DPS?"  Of course many are more nuanced than that, but several times I've seen someone write that they know they are doing their rotation correctly.  In a totally unscientific, anecdotal study based on a sample size of "those I can recall off the top of my head", hunters tend to analyze their own performance exactly in correlation with each of the five studies shown in Why the Unskilled.

This is, of course, exactly what we would expect (we being, anyone who's read that essay, or others on the same subject); the popular reasoning being that the less skilled you are at playing a hunter, the less able you'll be to adequately evaluate your play.

A popular youtuber, on the channel Veritasium, wrote his phd dissertation in science education on a similar subject. His basic point (if I may be so bold as to boil down years of research into a few words) was:

People generally overestimate how much they know about a subject, or how much they understand how something works. Because of that, when presented with new information on a subject, they will assume the data support their previously held view, instead of considering whether or not the data challenges that view. Therefore, educators must first convince someone that they are misunderstanding a topic before they can teach them to understand it differently.

This seems to be the biggest problem with trying to teach someone "how to hunter": most players are already convinced that they're playing the best way possible, they just don't have the right gear, or don't have the best pet for the DPS.

Self - Analysis

The reason I brought all of this up, is not only because I want to complain about people asking for help, but at least somewhat, because I'm curious how often I'm suffering from the same problem.  I can think of several occasions where I've been raiding with another hunter who out-dps'ed me, and of course my first thought isn't "I should look at their log and see what I could have done better" it's "they must have had better RNG than I". There's obvious dissonance between my analysis of myself and my actual performance. 

One of the conclusions from Why the Unskilled... was that there is a causal relationship between how well students adjudicate themselves (or how not overconfident they are) and being taught that intelligence, or traits are malleable. That is, if a student believes that there are some people who are just good at math, and some who aren't, then they're very likely to think they're performing better at math than they actually are; whereas a student who believes that "good at math" is something you can learn is much more likely to have an accurate impression of their own abilities.  

I've been trying to imagine how this could apply to playing a hunter.  Is it the case that people who say things like "I know my rotation is right, so why is my dps so low?" believe that people are either good at video game or not, instead of believing it's something you learn and get better at?  That's certainly conceivable. 

Inward Analysis vs Outward Presentation

One of the largest problems for young hunters out there, I'd imagine, is segregating self-analysis from how we present ourselves to others. That is to say, while it is demonstrably true that the more over-confident we are, the harder it is to improve, it also seems to be the case that the more over-confident we appear, the more people trust you know what you're doing.  

If you're playing WoW at any sort of competitive level, the vast majority of raid leaders won't know how to play your class, so if you say you know what you're doing confidently and can provide at least a little explanations, they'll tend to believe you and think you're a good player. This is very unfortunate then, for raid leaders hoping to be good at recruiting, as the opposite tends to actually be true. 

While I tend to think that being duped by the presentation of confidence is a sign of a bad leader (whether in game or out) it's still a reality that most players will have to deal with.  If we're actually trying to get better though, the trick seems to be to learn to segregate the confidence you need to present in order to be given a chance, and the realistic self-analysis you need to improve as a player.

Getting the Message Across

The main point of me writing this down, other than simply because I like thinking about interesting things, is I'm curious if we need a new approach to hunter guide writing.  Perhaps one that doesn't just say "this is your rotation" but says "this is how to think about rotations".  I've been a bit cautious of employing that sort of writing anywhere but on this blog (which has a much more particular reader base than, for example, the WHU, who, I hope, are more interested in the theory behind things than simply the results) because I know I've been frustrated when playing other games very casually, and I simply want a quick easy answer on "the best X, Y and Z".  But I'm certainly curious if it's been a disservice to those reading the guides.

How to actually write guides that are both challenging in that manner, and accessible is currently beyond my knowledge of pedagogy.  It is, however, definitely something I'm interested in, both because I want to be an effectual guide writer, and I want to improve as a player.