Taking your first class in a new subject can feel empowering. New concepts start to make sense, you grasp the basics, and you think: I’ve got this. But that very feeling can be misleading, say Atir and Dunning (2025) in a new study (Yes, that’s the Dunning of the Dunning-Kruger effect). Because after completing a beginner-level course, people often believe they know more than they actually do—even about things they’ve never learned.

In four studies, the researchers found a striking pattern: students who had completed an introductory course—whether in finance or in psychology and law—not only claimed to recognize more of the real terms from their course, but also more fictitious ones that were never covered. Even more telling: they were willing to bet money or rewards on their knowledge of these fake concepts.

And it didn’t stop at the classroom. In a follow-up experiment, participants received a brief training on GPS technology or a control topic. A week later, those in the GPS group were more likely to recognise invented terms, simply because they sounded plausible.

What’s going on? According to the researchers, two processes are at work. First, introductory learning increases self-perceived expertise: you feel like you know the field. Second, that basic knowledge creates a mental schema—a framework that makes new terms easier to slot in, even if they’re wrong. In other words, you know enough to convince yourself, but not enough to notice the errors.

The result is a paradox: early education increases actual knowledge, making it harder to recognise what you don’t know. Or, as the authors put it, your circle of competence starts to look bigger than it actually is.

For educators and trainers, this is a cautionary tale. The first steps in a learning process are crucial, but they don’t guarantee that learners can accurately judge their limits. Teaching should not only build knowledge, but also help students recognise the boundaries of that knowledge. Because the biggest risk may not be what you don’t know, but what you think you know.

Abstract of the study:

Education is a primary engine for gaining knowledge, yet it is unclear if introductory education helps learners gain meta-knowledge, that is, an accurate awareness of the scope and limits of their knowledge. We found that after taking an introductory finance class, relative to a control class, students overclaimed more knowledge they did not have, that is, endorsed more familiarity with bogus finance terms and expressed more confidence under incentives in their ability to answer questions about these terms. This finding was replicated in a Psychology and Law class, compared with a control class, with overclaiming still elevated two years later. In two follow-up experiments, participants in a hypothetical consulting context were randomly assigned to introductory training on GPS or a control topic. Participants in the GPS condition overclaimed more knowledge of bogus GPS terms and were more confident in their knowledge of real material never covered in the training, controlling for test performance. These effects were explained by introductory education both increasing self-perceived expertise in the education domain and creating basic schematic understanding that accommodates plausible but incorrect interpretations of unknown content. Introductory education, then, does not necessarily improve learners’ skills at identifying lack of knowledge. Rather, it can lead to an illusion of knowledge for unknown material, causing learners to overestimate their “circle of competence.”