More on becoming an expert
When you get to the end of this posting you will see that what appeared on an earlier post may well have been wrong. Once again we are stuck with the sticky problem that so ofter we build on what we thought was solid science knowledge only to find that our house was not earthquake proof or even waterproof. Oh well….
It took Gawande many many hours of practice to become a competent surgeon
We are all experts. I taught my sons how to drive a clutch car and after a while they could actually pay attention to the road after learning to shift gears without thinking about it. I learned to hit a backhand in tennis after getting some lessons from a pro that knew just what I was doing wrong and corrected my footwork just by knowing where to hit the ball to me. While I am not an expert tennis player, I no longer have to think about the position of my body on the court when hitting a backhand or forehand tennis stroke. I can also chew gum and walk down the street at the same time.
Hopefully, by the time a child is in the 6th grade they have become really skilled readers. Actually it would help if they achieved expertise in reading even before then. What does it mean to be an expert reader? I will try and answer that question from my perspective as a cognitive neuroscientist and not as a reading specialist. I see a skilled reader as someone who has automated the process and mechanics of the act of reading and can therefore attend to the content of the material being read. The child can think about what is being read, get surprised, bored, excited, and can question and relate material to other knowledge. Appreciating the content of read material is not automatic; it requires attention and control. There are several elements involved in becoming an expert reader, including having acquired a substantial vocabulary that is accessible automatically most of the time. An expert reader can extract content from the material being read because cognitive capacity need not be devoted to the act of reading itself. A reader that is not an expert has a huge disadvantage as a learner because cognitive capacity is largely engaged in the mechanics of reading, limiting what can be drawn from the content of what is being read. Teaching reading well also requires expertise and requires intimate knowledge of what kind of practice is useful. It also requires knowing when to increase a reading challenge, understanding where a child is in the trajectory of becoming more skilled at reading. And it requires knowing how to assess and identify what kind of practice is required in the next step in learning expert reading skills.
Practice, well-designed practice, is one of the cornerstones for developing expertise. Scientists that study the development of expertise emphasize sustained practice over a long period of time rather than genetics or talent as the major ingredient in becoming an expert. Experts actually perform the same task differently from good amateurs or rank amateurs, and this is quite evident just from simple observations as well as brain imaging studies (as demonstrated in studies of musicians, chess players, mathematicians, bird watchers, and wine connoisseurs).
Conceptually, learning to be a surgeon is not very different from learning to read or play chess. Years ago, Atul Gawande wrote an article for The New Yorker (Jan. 28, 2002) in which he describes the learning curve for becoming an accomplished surgeon. Gawande is not only a terrific surgeon, describing his own experience and that of his fellow surgeons, but he is a brilliant writer who captures that learning in a way that can make you gasp. He describes the beginning of his surgical training when with scalpel in hand and heart in mouth he makes his first incision under the watchful eye of others in the OR. He then goes on to talk about the development of expertise from the perspective of an expert surgeon. I recommend that you read his article. You won’t be disappointed. In fact Gwande is so good at translating life science and medicine in a way that can be understood by all of us that he has received a MacArthur award for his writing/explanatory skills.
Likewise, read any of the articles by the world’s experts on the development of expertise, for example, K. Andeers Ericsson’s review of the area in “Current Directions” in Psychological Science, Vol. 16, number 6, 346-350, a paper that is written jargon-free and is easy to read.
Obviously, knowing about the nature of expertise can be very useful for anyone interested in education.
How does expertise develop: We thought we knew but were wrong
Several years ago I posted on this website an informal review of what are the factors that account for the development of expertise such as in music, or chess, or baseball. The scientific story seemed to have been settled. It is practice that accounts for the development of expertise and not ‘god given genetic gifts’.
I was wrong to count on the reliability of the existing scientific research.
Once again we cannot count on scientific studies of complex mental functions producing knowledge that we can count on, that we can build on for further research.
I am disgusted and dismayed. Many studies over a period of several decades have presumably demonstrated that development of expertise is largely the result of a great deal of systematic well-designed practice. According to that body of research special skills being a gifted chess is not the result of built in talent but rather lots and lots of work. According to the scientist that has completed the most research in the study of expertise, practice accounts for about 80% of what it takes to become an expert (as opposed to natures genetic gifts).
It turns out that this may not be true but rather ‘innate’ talent accounts for most of the expertise effect, a complete reversal of the previous research findings.
How can such huge differences in results accounted for?
I am disillusioned once again in the reliability and validity of results obtained from studies of complex higher mental functions. This is a ridiculous state of affairs.