David Marlin decided to study us :)

Alibear

Alibear

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Please take this a tongue in cheek as I'm intending it. I find it funny and more so that H&H have published the article on their site.
Hopefully in the fullness of time we'll get a link or or more info on the study but it appears he was right and we are guilty as charged ;)
Personally for me, I can see he may well be right but I don't mind and its good to acknowledge there's a lot to learn.
https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/riders-think-know-research-shows-668964
 
That’s rather funny in the obvious way that if you did that for any group of people in any sphere you’d get that result.

Famously drivers tend to all believe they are better than average drivers.
Engineers believe they know everything about soil and never need to consult a geologist.
Politicians certainly think they know more. It’s a human thing. Not a horse-rider thing
 
annagain said:
So this is based on giving people a quiz and asking how well they thought they did? Surely people - in general, not just horsey ones - will think they've got the answers right or they wouldn't have given those answers in the first place!
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I guess there might be some that you knew you guessed because you didn't know, but like a lot of things it very much depends on how good the question is. I'm quite pro at pointing out issues about questions to people.
 
I think I attempted this survey (although it's possible there was a similar one performed by another researcher), and abandoned it midway through as I didn't like the questions / didn't think they were of sufficient clarity for me to answer them accurately. Which is the issue with this sort of survey - anyone with a degree of self-awareness is likely to run screaming from them before completion if they don't fully agree with an answer/question/ part of the set up.
 
People over-estimating their ability is nothing new. It has been demonstrated in drivers, medical students, doctors, sports people etc etc etc.

People of low ability tend to overestimate their ability across the board - due possible to a lack of self awareness.

When it comes to particular skills it is probably more to do with the lack of constructive critical feedback people get when learning.

I used to train CBT therapists up to Accredited level and we taped and rated all their clinical sessions against a checklist of 10 core competencies. The trainees were all already practicing - this was additional training to become accredited. Pretty much everyone starts off thinking they know what they are doing and are shocked by clear feedback that shows major errors. Virtually no-one passes their first few videos. We know that there is a learning trajectory they all take: Over-confidence, followed by under-confidence as they swing to thinking they know nothing at all then gradually their skills and their confidence increase together.

Judging by the hyped up sentence:

“This over-confidence can have serious consequences on the welfare of horses, could affect the mental health of riders, and raises important safety issues to the rider and horse.”

I would say Dr Marlin has an over-inflated sense of the relevance and importance of his work!
 
ester said:
I guess there might be some that you knew you guessed because you didn't know, but like a lot of things it very much depends on how good the question is. I'm quite pro at pointing out issues about questions to people.
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This.
I have a sneaking feeling that DM will be rather pleased that his study allegedly shows that we horsey folk know less than we think we do. He's very keen to trot out the Dunning-Kruger effect at the drop of a hat on his FB page to his adoring fans.

But how robust was the study?
 
Molasses said:
That’s rather funny in the obvious way that if you did that for any group of people in any sphere you’d get that result.

Famously drivers tend to all believe they are better than average drivers.
Engineers believe they know everything about soil and never need to consult a geologist.
Politicians certainly think they know more. It’s a human thing. Not a horse-rider thing
Click to expand...

Cross posted with you. But yes- this!
 
JFTD said:
I think I attempted this survey (although it's possible there was a similar one performed by another researcher), and abandoned it midway through as I didn't like the questions / didn't think they were of sufficient clarity for me to answer them accurately. Which is the issue with this sort of survey - anyone with a degree of self-awareness is likely to run screaming from them before completion if they don't fully agree with an answer/question/ part of the set up.
Click to expand...

I think I did too.
 
that one's different though as no mention of people rating how well they thought they did? Don't have time to go beyond the abstract right now.

I think mostly it shows that people aren't very good at google ;).
 
Faracat said:
https://hartpury.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/do-horse-owners-know-how-to-care-for-their-horses
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Sample size of 128 on that one leading to conclusions that people don't know enough to care for a horse and need education. Research carried out by an education establishment presumably happy to provide said education. Most people I know just ask someone with more experience than them, read up on it, or both.


These seemingly meaningless bits of research are just proof that to retain your position in a centre of further education you have to be seen to be publishing research which will bring PR to that centre of education.

Does anyone have access to the full research on that database? I would love to know what conclusions were drawn from the very odd questionnaire about stirrup leather length we had a discussion with Dr Marlin about, but I can't see them, only that it is on the database.
 
Is equine vet Dr. David Marlin an equestrian?

“This preliminary study found all equestrians had an inflated confidence in their equine-related knowledge indicating that equine-related individuals have only moderate insight into their abilities,” the study’s authors said.
 
Gift Horse said:
Is equine vet Dr. David Marlin an equestrian?

“This preliminary study found all equestrians had an inflated confidence in their equine-related knowledge indicating that equine-related individuals have only moderate insight into their abilities,” the study’s authors said.
Click to expand...

He's not a vet.
 
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