## 2 Literature Review and Development of Hypotheses
### Influence of Domain Knowledge on the Quality of Decision-Making and Confidence in Decision  
How individuals use knowledge to solve problems differs significantly from one another. Individuals who are more knowledgeable in an area of work tend to be more confident. The acquisition of knowledge about something in particular might result in the appearance of a cognitive bias that causes individuals to rely on their prior knowledge before making decisions [89]. The type of information that a decision-maker needs to make an informed decision highlights the value of having access to more information. It implies that having a broad understanding might help one make better decisions, especially in fields that require a broad range of expertise, like engineering design [27]. The quality of decisions may be impacted if self-evaluation is occasionally out of synchronization with actual capabilities, according to research on self-assessment of knowledge and abilities.  
Although it raises the possibility that self-assessed knowledge may be altered in the context of driver education, affecting the decisions made [90]. We therefore postulate the following:  
**Hypothesis 6 a.**_Self-reported engineering design knowledge is negatively associated with decision quality._  
Engineering design decision-making is multifaceted; it takes into account the designer's skill, and it is influenced by environmental settings [91]. Making knowledge-able choices is the major responsibility of a designer, and assistance is essential for improving skills and expediting the creation of high-quality designs [35]. Implicit information is used by experienced designers, considerably influencing engineering design decision-making [92]. Making informed decisions is made easier by expressing design information using a design-rule framework, which simplifies maintaining extensive knowledge bases [93]. Furthermore, experienced engineering design individuals generally exert more cognitive effort, which improves decision-making [94]. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:  
**Hypothesis 6 b.**_Test-evaluated engineering design knowledge's positive association with the quality of a decision._  
The distinction between self-reported information, commonly referred to as subjective knowledge and knowledge assessed by testing, known as objective knowledge, holds considerable significance due to the unique influence that each form of knowledge may exert on the decision-making process. Understanding this distinction is crucial for gaining a deeper comprehension of the decision-maker's capacity [6]. Despite their simplicity and cost-effectiveness, self-report measures have demonstrated limited agreement with objective performance. It follows that the existence of this phenomenon can influence decision-making processes whenever one relies on self-reported information [95]. In empirical software engineering research and education, it is often necessary to ask students to assess their own perceived level of experience. Empirical research has shown that self-rated experience has predictive validity in predicting performance in programming activities. The application of self-report measures is significantly growing, particularly in knowledge assessment. As mentioned, there is a chance that over-reliability on self-reported information may lead to an incorrect representation of knowledge and, therefore, reduce decision-making confidence levels [96].  
Further research needs to be conducted to critically investigate various influences and effects of self-reported and test-evaluated competence on decision-making within the engineering design field. This exploration is important to gain a better understanding of how these factors influence individuals' confidence in their decision-making abilities.  
**Hypothesis 7 a.**_A positive relation between Self-reported knowledge in engineering design and confidence in a decision._  
**Hypothesis 7 b.**_A positive relation between test-evaluated knowledge in engineering design knowledge confidence in a decision._