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> We asked respondents to evaluate their own competence, for the specific work they do and years of experience they have, and almost 70% of respondents say they
by umvi 8y ago
> We asked respondents to evaluate their own competence, for the specific work they do and years of experience they have, and almost 70% of respondents say they are above average while less than 10% think they are below average. This is statistically unlikely with a sample of over 70,000 developers who answered this question, to put it mildly.
I'm torn here. It's hard to correct for bias. It would be like if a bank had a survey and had people rate their financial stability - but they had to have an account with the bank to participate in the survey. Wouldn't that bias the results in favor of financially responsible people?
I'd be interested how many 0 rep new accounts with lots of downvotes claimed high competence vs. established accounts. It could very well be that people with SO accounts who are willing to take the time for SO's survey are the type of people that are more competent on average than developers that don't have SO accounts and don't participate in surveys.
- hnarn 8y agoYou have a point. It's not hard to imagine that actually using SO in the first place might correlate to you being an above average developer (among all developers).
- Semaphor 8y agoWhile I neither disagree nor agree, I've heard people claim the opposite: That people on SO are generally below average.
- commandlinefan 8y agoWell, maybe the people asking questions are below and the people answering them are above.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]