Thanks a lot for the explanation and link. I had read the original papers a long time ago, and was not aware of the more recent discussions. That said, I just read a few of the critical papers, and it seems that even Gignac and others do not dispute that the effect is observable. They just don't believe that unskilled people are inherently worse than skilled people in estimating their own skill but that all people overestimate their skill (better-than-average effect).

This is still very much compatible with my claim that unskilled people profit from being reminded (repeatedly, not just in the exam at the end of the semester) that they know less than they think. I will avoid conflating this with the Dunning-Kruger effect in the future (Thanks!).

An recent study found that medical students' estimate of their own intelligence gets lower right after taking an IQ test (confirming the better-than-average effect). But one week later, their self-estimated intelligence returns back to their pre-test levels. To me this suggests that students (and all others) will overestimate their abilities - and invest less time in learning - if they are not constantly given feedback.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...