Hypothesis 1 for Apprentice Birders: the cycle of building and releasing frustration keeps some Apprentice Birders stuck in "beginner mode"

Recall the basic bird-birder interactions that form the foundation for understanding the behavior of birders in the field.  To summarize the model (Figure 1), the Apprentice Birder encounters birds.  He focuses on one particular bird, and decides whether to try to identify it.  Unfortunately, the observed bird looks like many similar ones in the bird book.  That’s Ok, he’ll just look for another to that might be easier to identify.  But, the next one is too hard to identity.  And so is the third one, and the fourth one. 

Figure 1.  Basic bird-birder interactions.

Each time this happens, a little a little more frustration builds for the Apprentice Birder (note the red box in Figure 2).  In an effort to release that building frustration, the Apprentice Birder looks for another, easier-to-identify bird.  Easier-to-identify birds might be birds the Apprentice already knows, or they might be birds that look just like a picture in a book.

Figure 2.  Some Apprentice Birders become frustrated by encountering birds that are "too hard" for them to even try to identify and so go look for easier birds to identify.  By always looking for birds to identify that are not "too hard," they never improve their identification skills.  The result is that they get stuck in "beginner mode."

Either way, the Apprentice’s level of skill in identifying birds does not improve.  (Note in the model that no flow pipes come into or out of the variable called “skill and expertise” indicating that the level remains constant.)  Because a high percentage of encountered birds always will be “too difficult” for the Apprentice to even try to identify, the level of frustration always will exceed some tolerable level.  Consciously or unconsciously, the Apprentice Birder will seek to release that frustration.  The easiest way to do that is for the Apprentice to look for another bird to try to identify. 

An important key for getting “unstuck from beginner mode” is for the Apprentice Birder to improve his or her bird identification skills.  There may be many good ways to do this (and some ways that are not so good).  Future blogs will address some hypotheses about various ways.

Go bird!