Lecture 08 - The Relevance of Research on Expertise to Our Everyday Lives

Question 1

What are the three different types of experience?

Answer 1

deliberate practice: individualized training on tasks selected by a qualified teacher

play: primary goal is the inherent enjoyment of the activity

work: public performances, competitions or other performance motivated by $

Question 2

What are the different types of practice?

Answer 2

naive: doing repeatedly and expecting repetition to result in improvement

purposeful: practice that is goal-oriented, thoughtful and focused
- well-defined specific goals
- focused - requires full attention
- involves feedback
- you must get out of comfort zone

deliberate: activities designed to push you beyond your current level
- requires a field that is relatively well developed
–> can measure differences in performance
–> there exist accepted training methods
- requires expert instruction

Question 3

Why is deliberate practice so important?

Answer 3

1. Goal to attend to the task and improve performance
2. explicit instructions about the best methods of improvement
3. immediate feedback on one’s performance
4. repeatedly performs the same or similar tasks

Question 4

TRUE or FALSE: in most domains, years of experience with an activity is very strongly related to level of performance

Answer 4

FALSE

in most domains, years of experience with an activity is only weakly related to level of performance

example: accountants, therapists, medical doctors

Question 5

Why was Tiger Woods so much better than all other professionals?

Answer 5

the MONOTONIC BENEFITS ASSUMPTION
- performance is a monotonic function of the amount of deliberate practice accumulated since these individuals began deliberate practice in the domain

ACCUMULATED DELIBERATE PRACTICE = amount of weekly practice and age at which individual began

Question 6

What is the message for the aspiring expert?

Answer 6

“crucial challenge is to avoid the arrested development associated with generalized automaticity of performance by deliberately acquiring and refining cognitive mechanisms to support continued learning and improvement”

Question 7

What can deliberate practice help individuals who don’t want to be experts do?

Answer 7

deliberate practice may sometimes be useful to just help individuals participate and to blend in

Question 8

What are the key insights of today’s lecture?

Answer 8

playing doesn’t help you get better

competing doesn’t help you get better

only deliberate practice helps you get better

we must discover what is the best deliberate practice in each area

these insights will be ESPECIALLY HELPFUL in our everyday lives, as workers, amateur performers, and parents

Question 9

What are the barriers to acquiring expertise?

Answer 9

early exposure

exposure during critical development period

keen interest in the domain (genetic?)

insufficient self-regulatory skill to maintain practice regimen (genetic?)

financial resources

lack of top-level of instruction

demotivating instruction at critical time

excessive practice leading to injury and burnout