The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance

In this episode I unpack Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer’s (1993) publication titled “The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance,” which debunks the notion of innate abilities within a domain and describes the role of deliberate practice in achieving expert performance.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    each week of this podcast alternates

    between an interview with a guest or

    multiple guests

    and a solo episode where i unpack some

    scholarship in this week's particular

    episode i am

    unpacking the paper titled the role of

    deliberate practice

    in the acquisition of expert performance

    and this was written by k

    anders erickson ralph klump and clemens

    teshrumer

    and apologies if i mispronounced any

    names as always you can find

    links in the show notes which you can

    visit by clicking on the link in your

    app

    that you're listening to this on or by

    simply going to jaredaler.com

    and go into the podcast tab in the show

    notes if you click on the author's last

    name you will go to the google scholar

    profile so you can read more papers by

    them

    or you can click on the title of this

    particular article and it'll send you

    directly to

    a pdf of the paper so you can read it

    which i highly recommend you do because

    i'm not able to talk about everything in

    this particular episode

    all right so here's the abstract for

    this paper quote the theoretical

    framework presented in this article

    explains expert performance as the end

    result of individuals prolonged efforts

    to improve performance while negotiating

    motivational and external constraints

    in most domains of expertise individuals

    begin in their childhood

    a regime of effortful activities

    deliberate practice

    designed to optimize improvement

    individual differences

    even among elite performers are closely

    related to assessed amounts of

    deliberate practice

    many characteristics once believed to

    reflect innate talent

    are actually the result of intense

    practice extended for a minimum

    of 10 years analysis of expert

    performance provides unique evidence of

    the potential

    and limits of extreme environmental

    adaptation and learning end quote

    all right so if i were to summarize this

    paper into a single sentence i would say

    that this paper debunks the notion of

    innate abilities within a domain

    and it describes the role of deliberate

    practice in achieving

    expert performance okay so why am i

    talking about this in a computer science

    education podcast

    so one of the benefits that cs educators

    might have

    is if you work across multiple grade

    levels you're able to

    take an approach to developing expertise

    over the long term rather than just

    for a quarter a semester or a year that

    some teachers have

    so for example when i worked in the k-8

    school that i previously worked at in

    avondale

    one of the things that i considered was

    how do i help kids develop expertise

    from kindergarten all the way through

    eighth grade in computer science

    so if you are working with grade levels

    this is something that might really

    help you and the kids that you work with

    so rather than teaching

    concepts for supposed mastery within a

    semester or a year

    we as a field should really think about

    how our learning experiences help kids

    develop expertise

    in computer science over decades now

    deliberate practice is the framework

    that inspired malcolm

    gladwell's book outliers and in that

    book gladwell discusses

    what he calls the ten thousand hour rule

    however many people don't actually

    realize that he's citing erickson's work

    so like this paper and some other works

    by erickson and some of the other

    scholars that

    are cited in this publication also one

    of the things of note is that the ten

    thousand hour rule is not actually a

    rule

    it's an average that changes for each

    domain so some domains is around eight

    thousand

    other domains it's actually around

    twenty thousand now this has been a

    particular

    interest of mine for many years so one

    of the reasons why is because i started

    making music in eighth grade

    and i was just kind of okay at it got

    some lessons didn't really do

    anything great with it my freshman year

    of high school

    i was in the marching band and i had a

    part where i was literally just supposed

    to keep the beat

    to the music on a cowbell and i was so

    bad at it that i could not

    just keep a straight beat just literally

    going

    doing that so they cut that part for me

    and i didn't get to play that part i had

    to play other stuff

    that apparently was easier however by my

    sophomore year i became first chair of

    every ensemble

    and by my senior year i received a full

    ride in percussion performance

    so one of the reasons why i'm interested

    in this area is because i was curious

    why was i able to excel at that rate

    while my peers who were also interested

    in making music

    were not now it turns out that my escape

    from suicidal thoughts

    likely ended up leading to a healthy

    coping mechanism in the form of

    practicing music as much as possible

    to escape those thoughts because i was

    constantly practicing i was able to

    increase my abilities as a performer to

    further kind of like understand

    this process i started to study sports

    psychology during my undergrad and

    just as electives and then dove deeper

    into this topic in my masters

    after i actually got into the research

    on this side of things like reading

    erickson's works and a bunch of other

    people on this

    i went out and tried to apply the

    concepts from what i learned

    in my own learning and my own

    facilitating or teaching with kids

    and it works really well but i have to

    say it is not at all easy to do

    so what i'm hoping is that this

    particular podcast provides a framework

    for considering how to develop your own

    expertise and the expertise of kids that

    you work with alright so let's get into

    the article itself so this article

    begins with a brief

    history of the views of talent and

    expert performance

    so for example discussing sir francis

    galton's view that high performance in

    an area was due to innate capacities

    which fun fact sir francis galton is a

    cousin i believe of charles darwin now

    this

    view of the innate capacities or

    abilities has continued up to the time

    of this publication which was 1993

    and even modern day in some areas so for

    example it was thought that people had

    innate memory capacities or neural

    transmission speeds

    that could not be improved through

    training and practice alone

    however research in those areas have

    found that quote

    experts are faster and more accurate

    than less accomplished individuals

    however experts's superior speed and

    their domain of expertise does not

    transfer to general tests of speed

    end quote and that quote experts's

    memory for representative stimuli

    from their domain is vastly superior to

    that of lesser experts

    especially for briefly presented stimuli

    but when tested on randomly rearranged

    versions

    of representative stimuli from their

    domain presented with short exposures

    or on materials outside of their domain

    the memory of experts

    is no better than that of ordinary

    individuals the domain specific nature

    of experts's superior performance

    implies that acquired knowledge and

    skill are important to attainment of

    expert performance in quote so both of

    those quotes are from page 365.

    so in other words even in areas where

    many people for

    many many years have considered that you

    cannot improve like

    how fast your brain process things or

    your memory

    there have been studies that have shown

    that you actually can

    and that is domain specific and is a

    result of intentional practice

    now erickson and the other authors don't

    completely rule out heritable traits

    as some sports and activities favor

    heritable traits such as height so for

    example

    basketball however you can still be

    really good at dribbling and shooting

    etc

    while playing basketball even if you are

    not tall so the next section of the

    paper discusses whether or not

    experience within a domain correlates to

    maximal performance

    so for example is a teacher who has been

    teaching for 30 years

    inherently going to be better than a

    teacher who's only been teaching for 10

    years

    now the authors would argue no it

    depends on the amount of feedback

    and the actual amount of effort went

    into improving

    your performance over time as an

    educator so as some examples in the

    paper they mentioned

    some examples of changes in world

    records for olympic events

    significant changes over time and world

    records in general

    and other domains that have been

    systematically measured or evaluated in

    the past couple of centuries

    like music chess etc here's a quote from

    page 366

    quote in virtually all domains insights

    and knowledge are steadily accumulating

    and the criteria for imminent as well as

    expert performance undergo continuous

    change

    to reach the status of an expert in

    domain it is sufficient to master the

    existing knowledge and techniques

    to make an imminent achievement one must

    first achieve the level of

    an expert and then in addition surpass

    the achievements of already recognized

    eminem people and make innovative

    contributions to the domain

    in sum the belief that a sufficient

    amount of experience or practice leads

    to maximal performance appears incorrect

    in quote so the next section of the

    paper addresses the belief that

    people with innate abilities are able to

    achieve expert levels of performance

    much faster

    and with less effort than people without

    such innate abilities

    however they point out studies in chess

    music mathematics tennis

    swimming long distance running and other

    domains that most experts take at least

    become an expert in a domain

    in addition people who start at young

    ages in domains such as music

    poetry or even science still tend to

    take an average of 10 years to refine

    their expertise

    and if you're thinking of videos that

    have gone viral of young musicians

    playing complicated material

    they tend to be great for their age in

    terms of technical ability but

    not an expert when compared to outside

    of their age group

    so here's a quote from the paper from

    page 369

    quote in the performance of music

    children and adolescents are judged

    principally on their technical

    proficiency

    expert adult performers however are

    judged on their interpretation and

    ability to express

    emotions through music the ability of

    many child prodigies in music

    to succeed as adult musicians is often

    attributed to

    difficulties making this transition

    possibly resulting from inappropriate

    training and instruction during the

    early and mid

    phases of music training to become

    outstanding musicians at the

    international level

    individuals have to contribute unique

    interpretations of music end quote okay

    so while kids might be able to achieve

    technical abilities they still have to

    put in the time to develop those

    technical abilities and a lot of time

    and if you're thinking yeah but what

    about mozart

    here's some context for you mozart's dad

    was considered to be an excellent music

    teacher

    who dedicated a lot of time teaching

    mozart when he was a toddler

    in addition mozart was obsessive about

    making music

    so he became good at a young age because

    he was always making music

    and had guidance from his father who was

    a well-known music pedagogue

    and for context i've had the privilege

    of working with children who might be

    considered prodigious and adults who are

    considered to be some of the best in

    their domain and what they do

    every single one of them spent countless

    hours refining their craft in different

    ways

    in order to become an expert in that

    area you have to practice

    and it's a lot of practice so here's a

    summary quote from page 366

    quote we have shown that expert

    performance is acquired slowly over a

    very long time

    as a result of practice and that the

    highest levels of performance and

    achievement

    appear to require at least around 10

    years of intense prior preparation

    end quote so the authors end this

    introduction by arguing there's not

    enough research on how to develop

    expertise through practice so the

    remainder of the paper kind of describes

    how to do it through something they call

    deliberate practice

    okay so a quick summary of the

    introduction so they provide a

    brief history of the idea of expertise

    or talent or innate abilities

    they summarize some of the research

    behind the idea that

    abilities are in fact not innate and

    then they argue that

    we need to have some research that shows

    well how

    our abilities developed over time all

    right so now getting into deliberate

    practice

    so here are some of the characteristics

    the first one is motivation to

    participate in the domain

    and to improve performance over an

    extended period of time like

    years the next characteristic is the

    activity needs to take into account

    where the participant is

    at in that moment so can't be too hard

    it can't be too easy

    it needs to be in that like goldilocks

    zone the next characteristic is that

    participants should receive

    immediate feedback or knowledge of how

    they did so without being able to refine

    practices through in the moment feedback

    participants are not likely to improve

    over extended periods of times

    they'll just be guessing and the last

    characteristic is that the participants

    need to be able to repeatedly perform

    the task

    whether it's the same task or something

    that is similar so what does this mean

    for computer science education

    so the first thing is that we need to

    find ways to motivate kids to want to

    learn over an extended period of time we

    can't expect kids to become an expert in

    coding or computer science

    after just a quarter a year whatever now

    the best approach that i

    have found is to start with students as

    interests and have many avenues for

    engagement

    another thing that we need to consider

    is we need to design experiences or

    spaces with resources that allow kids to

    explore

    and learn in increasingly complex ways

    that align with their current abilities

    kids are going to come in with different

    experiences with computers and computer

    science

    and as they're learning it they're going

    to have more opportunities inside or

    outside of school

    or less opportunities than their peers

    so we need to have a range of resources

    that accounts for these different skills

    or understandings another thing that we

    need to consider is that kids need to

    receive immediate feedback from computer

    science facilitators peers or software

    to help with continuous refinement they

    can't just work on something and then a

    month later actually get some feedback

    on it so for example

    can't just write code for a program and

    then a month later press the compile

    button and see if it actually

    works you need to be able to constantly

    receive feedback on what's working and

    what needs improvement such as through

    debugging

    and kids need to be able to repeatedly

    apply their understandings in

    interesting and meaningful ways assist

    with sustaining

    engagement over an extended period of

    time now one of the things i've

    mentioned in the podcast repeatedly is

    trying to work with kids one-on-one

    rather than teaching to a group

    or to a mean of the group so here's a

    quote from page 367 that talks about the

    importance of this

    quote although it is possible to

    generate curriculum and use group

    instruction

    it is generally recognized that

    individualized supervision by a teacher

    is superior

    research in education reviewed by bloom

    shows that when students are randomly

    assigned to instruction by a tutor or to

    conventional teaching

    tutoring yields better performance by

    two standard deviations the average

    tutored student performed at the 98th

    percentile of students taught

    with the conventional method

    interestingly the correlation between

    prior achievement and achievement on the

    current course

    was reduced and correspond to only about

    six percent of the variance of the

    tutored students

    as compared with around 36 percent for

    students taught with conventional

    methods

    end quote so in other words working with

    kids one-on-one works much better than

    working

    with kids in a group and not being able

    to provide that individualized feedback

    now since reading this

    research and trying to apply it in my

    own life one of the things i need to

    consider

    is how should there be a balance between

    deliberate practice

    and a balance between play inquiry

    experimentation etc

    in the k-8 spaces that i particularly

    worked on i prefer to focus on play

    inquiry experimentation and just

    cultivating motivation or enjoyment

    within the field one of the reasons for

    this is because i'm trying to build off

    the interests of the kids that i'm

    working with and if i were to

    immediately jump into deliberate

    practice with kids

    they would likely want to quit or lose

    interest in cs education

    or whatever domain i'm facilitating so

    here's a quote that elaborates on this

    this quote is from page 368 quote in

    contrast to play

    deliberate practice is highly structured

    activity the explicit goal of which is

    to improve performance

    specific tasks are invented to overcome

    weaknesses and performance is carefully

    monitored to provide cues for ways to

    improve

    it further we claim that deliberate

    practice requires effort and is not

    inherently enjoyable

    individuals are motivated to practice

    because practice improves performance

    in addition engaging in deliberate

    practice generates no immediate monetary

    rewards

    and generates costs associated with

    access to teachers and training

    environments

    thus an understanding of the long-term

    consequences of deliberate practice is

    important in quote so in other words

    deliberate practice can be

    exhausting although i've worked with

    many kids and adults who are interested

    in engaging in deliberate practice

    in a particular domain most people are

    unwilling or uninterested

    in the actual amount of time it takes

    and the amount of money and the

    amount of effort that can actually go

    into developing expertise over many

    years

    okay so the authors note that there are

    three requirements of deliberate

    practice

    so here's the first one from page 368.

    quote

    first deliberate practice requires

    available time and energy for the

    individual as well as access to teachers

    training material and training

    facilities the resource constraint

    if the individual is a child or

    adolescent someone in the individual's

    environment must be willing to pay for

    training material in the time of

    professional teachers

    as well as for transportation to and

    from training facilities

    and competitions end quote here's the

    second requirement from pages 368 and

    quote second engagement in deliberate

    practice is not inherently motivating

    performers consider it instrumental in

    achieving further improvements in

    performance

    the motivational constraint the lack of

    inherent reward or enjoyment

    in practice as distinct from the

    enjoyment of the result or improvement

    is consistent with the fact that

    individuals in a domain rarely initiate

    practice

    spontaneously end quote and here's the

    final requirement from page 369

    vote finally deliberate practice is an

    effortful activity

    that can be sustained only for a limited

    time each day during extended periods

    without leading to exhaustion effort

    constraint to maximize gains from

    long-term performance individuals must

    avoid exhaustion

    and must limit practice to an amount

    from which they can completely recover

    on a daily or weekly basis end quote now

    in each one of these

    quotes they mentioned some constraints

    the resource constraint the effort

    constraint and the motivational

    constraint i'll talk a little bit more

    about those in a moment now when

    engaging in

    expertise acquisition they argue that

    there are three phases

    to this so the first phase is beginning

    with an introduction to the domain so

    so for example hour of code or a

    computer science class that's getting

    your feet wet into it

    the next phase for expertise acquisition

    is when

    deliberate practice begins so

    intentionally setting forth to try and

    improve your abilities in

    understanding over time and the third

    phase starts when a person strives for

    improvement within the domain full time

    now having worked with every grade

    kindergarten through graduate students

    at a university it's interesting to

    think about which

    phase a person might be in within a

    domain given the age that you're working

    with

    so for example most of the k-8 kids i

    worked with were in phase one many of

    the high school kids i worked with were

    in phase two

    and many of the undergrad and graduate

    students were in phase three

    however that's a generalization as i've

    seen

    each phase across different grades and

    age groups

    okay so now that we know the

    characteristics and requirements for

    deliberate practice and we know what the

    phases are what are some of the

    constraints that

    prevent people from all becoming experts

    in a domain so the first one is a

    resource constraint

    to engage in deliberate practice it

    often requires a lot of time

    and money for parents to help kids

    attend practices or purchase equipment

    pay for lessons or coaches etc and this

    directly relates to some equity issues

    in terms

    of who has access to engage in

    deliberate practice

    so for example a student who cannot

    afford private lessons

    and has to work an after-school job is

    not going to be able to put in as much

    time as a student who can pay

    for one-on-one instruction and has the

    luxury of being able to practice

    rather than having to work minimum wage

    job this is one of the factors of why i

    was able to excel over some of my peers

    because i did not have to work i had

    that privilege and all i had to do when

    i got home was practice so as a musician

    i was able to accelerate at a faster

    rate

    than my peers who had to work jobs and

    who had to engage in activities that

    prevented them from being able to

    practice

    or some of my friends who did not have

    the money to afford private lessons

    to improve their performance okay so the

    next constraint is the effort constraint

    so it takes a lot of time and energy to

    engage in deliberate practice

    so here's a quote from page 370 quote

    the limited duration of practice is the

    best evidence of the effort it requires

    when individuals especially children

    start practicing in a given domain

    the amount of practice is an hour or

    less per day

    similarly laboratory studies of extended

    practice limit practice

    to about one hour for three to five days

    a week end quote

    and a little bit further here's picking

    up the quote again quote

    studies show essentially no benefit from

    durations exceeding

    four hour per day and reduced benefits

    for practices

    exceeding two hour end quote so in other

    words yeah you could put in 10 hours a

    day if you wanted to

    but you're gonna have diminishing

    returns after only a couple or a few

    hours

    so you might be able to work on your

    stamina but you are likely not improving

    and if anything you might be

    regressing in your abilities and could

    lead to injury

    exhaustion burnout etc one of the

    reasons why is because when engaging

    in deliberate practice it is recommended

    that individuals are fully

    in attentive in their own practices and

    without having enough time to rest or

    recover

    between that that's when it can cause

    the exhaustion

    fatigue injuries etc quote in summary

    disregard of the effort constraint on

    deliberate practice leads to injury and

    even failure

    in the short term optimal deliberate

    practice maintains equilibrium between

    effort and recovery

    in the long term it negotiates the

    effort constraints by slow

    regular increases in amounts of practice

    that allow for adaptation to increase

    demands

    end quote from page 371 all right and

    the third constraint is motivational

    constraint

    quote interested individuals need to be

    engaged in the activity and motivated to

    improve performance before

    they begin deliberate practice end quote

    from page 371

    this is one of the reasons why i focus

    so much on interest-driven learning

    having personally put deliberate

    practice to the test in multiple domains

    like music computer science i can attest

    to how difficult it is to sustain

    intense engagement over multiple years

    without the motivation you'll likely get

    burned out and lose interest in the

    subject

    matter which is something that schools

    are honestly particularly

    good at doing they're really good at

    burning kids out think of the ted talk

    by

    the late sir ken robinson okay so quick

    summary of the constraints so we have

    constraints around resources

    effort and motivation if you do not have

    the resources do not have the effort and

    do not have

    the motivation you likely will not be

    able to obtain expert performance so

    these are three things that we need to

    consider when we're working with kids

    if we're trying to help them become an

    expert within a domain like computer

    science

    okay so the next big chunk of the paper

    is two studies that highlight

    the role of deliberate practice in

    expert performance

    i highly recommend reading through the

    paper to get the details of those

    findings

    but a basic summary is that quote elite

    performers spend

    much time on deliberate practice and in

    those cases in which amount of weekly

    deliberate practice has been recorded

    high level performance is associated

    with higher levels of deliberate

    practice at the same age

    in quote from page 390 and another quote

    from page 390

    quote the structure of training programs

    in virtually any domain

    adapts the deliberate practice

    activities to suit the level of current

    performance

    increased complexity and proficiency of

    acquired skills and characteristics

    leads to increased performance and

    allows for engagement in more

    challenging deliberate practice

    activities for a longer period of time

    in quote in other words it gets

    increasingly complex over time

    and you'll be able to practice more

    over an extended period of time and

    here's one more summary quote

    from these studies from page 392 quote

    across many domains of expertise a

    remarkably consistent pattern emerges

    the best individuals start practice at

    earlier ages and maintain a higher level

    of daily practice

    moreover estimates indicate that at any

    age the best individuals in quite

    different domains such as sports and

    music

    spend similar amounts of time on

    deliberate practice in virtually all

    domains

    there is evidence that the most

    important activity practice

    thinking or writing requires

    considerable effort and is scheduled for

    a fixed period during the day

    for those exceptional individuals who

    sustain this regular activity for months

    and years

    its duration is limited to two to four

    hours a day which is a fraction of their

    time awake

    end quote all right so listening to that

    quote and some of the other stuff i've

    been talking about you

    may have been thinking some of the

    ethics behind deliberate practice

    here's a quote from page 393 that is a

    little long but

    is really worth considering quote in the

    current system

    with age-matched evaluation of

    performance it is impossible for an

    individual with less accumulated

    practice

    at some age to catch up with the best

    individuals who have started earlier

    and maintain maximum levels of

    deliberate practice

    not leading to exhaustion as noted

    earlier the amount of possible practice

    appears to slowly increase with

    accumulated practice and skill

    hence individuals intent on catching up

    may suddenly increase the amount of

    deliberate practice to the level

    or even above the level of the best

    performers within months these

    individuals are likely to encounter

    overuse injuries and exhaustion and may

    terminate their engagement in their

    domain

    convinced that the best performance are

    qualitatively different

    furthermore the difference in

    accumulated deliberate practice

    in late adolescent for the good and best

    violinist is remarkably large

    and to eliminate this difference the

    good violinists would need to practice

    an additional five

    hours per week beyond the current

    optimal level of weekly practice

    for more than eight full years end quote

    okay so how does

    this relate to cs education or education

    in general

    so what it's saying is if we have kids

    who are starting to learn how to code

    maybe in kindergarten maybe they spend

    an hour a week

    or in kindergarten then first grade

    maybe they spend two hours a week et

    cetera

    by the time they get to eighth grade if

    you have an eighth grader

    who has never coded before and is just

    getting started it would be nearly

    impossible for them to catch up

    with the students who have had

    kindergarten through 8th grade working

    on the skill

    so the idea of cs for all and starting

    early

    becomes an ethical consideration when

    only some schools offer

    this and other schools do not so if we

    look at this from

    an ethical and expertise acquisition or

    skill acquisition

    lens it's problematic when schools don't

    offer a particular subject area

    if we think that subject area is

    important to engage in and become an

    expert in

    all right so the next big chunk of the

    paper is a general discussion

    there's a lot of content in this

    particular section and i'm going to

    briefly summarize only some of it again

    i highly recommend reading this actual

    paper

    and thinking of the implications in your

    own life and in your own teaching or

    facilitating

    so one of the sections kind of addresses

    what some of you might be thinking you

    might be thinking yeah but x person has

    y

    physical characteristics that helps them

    with a particular domain

    while that is true these are more than

    likely a result of

    intense practicing other than like

    height or something like that

    so here's an example so intense

    practicing over prolonged periods of

    time

    can result in cognitive adaptations

    genetic adaptations

    neurological adaptations perceptual

    motor adaptations

    physiological adaptations psychomotor

    adaptations and more

    the authors highlight some examples but

    i've also read other studies in various

    sports psychology

    medicine and other journals to confirm

    these adaptations

    so if you have a fixed mindset about

    your own abilities or the abilities of

    the kids that you work with

    check out these studies for some

    examples of growth that i honestly

    didn't even know was possible until i

    started reading it and applying these in

    different contexts

    so the next section of the general

    discussion the authors discussed the

    apparent

    innate talent in children in savants and

    found that quote

    exceptional abilities observed in

    children in idiot savants are consistent

    with all the characteristics of acquired

    skills

    most of them can be easily acquired by

    adults through known training methods

    although some of them may be more easily

    acquired during childhood

    the motivational factors that lead

    children in idiot savants to focus their

    time

    and energy on activities that improve

    performance are still poorly understood

    in quote from page 396. an apologies for

    using the word idiot that was

    a direct quote so this finding relative

    to savantism

    has been found in many other studies

    that i have looked into

    so for example calendrical savants are

    individuals who can

    like you say what day of the week was

    january 3rd 1912

    and they'll be able to like very fast

    tell you

    what day of the week that was so

    calendrical savants

    actually engage in obsessive practice

    memorizing formulas for these dates so

    it's not like they were just born all of

    a sudden with

    an infinite calendar in their brain they

    regularly practice this and are

    constantly thinking about

    memorize formulas for remembering dates

    so next the authors discuss how it can

    be difficult to measure and predict

    performance

    when it takes about a decade of intense

    practice to achieve expert results

    so if we want to actually look at

    expertise in computer science we need to

    actually engage in longitudinal studies

    we can't just be like oh well we did

    this intervention for a week

    and they learned and they increased from

    a three out of five to a four and a half

    out of five look at us this is amazing

    now they're experts no it we need to

    actually look at stuff over

    decades of time to see how people are

    actually learning these things

    over multiple years alright so here are

    a couple of quotes

    that kind of summarize the overall paper

    and conclude it so here's a quote from

    page

    quote we reject any important role of

    innate ability

    it is quite plausible however that

    heritable individual differences

    might influence processes related to

    motivation

    and the original enjoyment of the

    activities in the domain and in even

    and even more important affect the

    inevitable differences

    in the capacity to engage in hard work

    deliberate practice

    in quote and here's one more quote from

    page 400.

    vote it does not follow from the

    rejection of innate

    limits on acquired performance that

    everyone can easily attain

    high levels of skill contemporary elite

    performers have overcome a number of

    constraints

    they have obtained early access to

    instructors maintained high levels of

    deliberate practice throughout

    development

    received continued parental and

    environmental support

    and avoided disease and injury when one

    considers in addition the prerequisite

    motivation

    necessary to engage in deliberate

    practice every day for years and for

    decades

    when most children in adolescents of

    similar ages engages in play and leisure

    the real constraints of the acquisition

    of expert performance becomes apparent

    the commitment to deliberate practice

    distinguishes the expert performer

    from the vast majority of children and

    adults who seem to have remarkable

    difficulty

    meeting the much lower demands of

    practice in schools adult education

    and in physical exercise programs end

    quote all right so that's kind of a

    main summary of some of the findings in

    this particular paper again there are

    two studies embedded within this that i

    very briefly summarized

    the findings from and there's a lot more

    content in here that

    provides examples and dives into the

    nitty gritty like you might be

    thinking yeah well what about the

    familial dynasties like the bach family

    like they were all great musicians blah

    blah well they actually talk about that

    so i highly recommend reading it which

    again you can find in the show notes

    just click on the title of the article

    in the show notes

    okay as always in these unpacking

    scholarship episodes i like to share

    some of my lingering questions or

    thoughts

    so one of them is are we as cs educators

    designing classes

    experiences or curricula that develop

    expertise or are we

    developing general knowledge depending

    on how you answer that

    is going to determine a completely

    different approach to what you should

    take in the classroom

    if you are going to engage in deliberate

    practice what kind of balance should we

    strive for between play and deliver

    deliberate practice

    especially if we are saying that

    everybody should learn computer science

    education

    well what about those who are not

    interested in deliberate practice that

    will likely burn them out

    maybe we should engage and play with

    them but the ones who are interested

    in diving deep into cs education how can

    we provide deliberate practice

    opportunities for them in our classes

    so while i have previously mentioned how

    scholars like resnick russ kaphai pepler

    etc

    focus on play and how that really

    resonates with me the sustained

    engagement within a domain that

    motivates children

    doesn't necessarily guarantee kids will

    become experts within the domain without

    striving to continually improve their

    abilities

    through something like deliberate

    deliberate practice so this is one of

    the reasons why i encourage kids to

    engage in ipsitive assessment practices

    to assess their current understandings

    in relation to prior understandings

    and to then set their own goals for what

    they wanted to learn next

    so if they weren't forging new paths or

    creative applications of their

    understandings

    then i'd sit down with them and help

    them brainstorm new ways to challenge

    themselves to dive deeper in the areas

    that they are interested in so for

    example a group of middle schoolers

    were making variations upon maze games

    in scratch

    and every time they finished one i'd ask

    what are you gonna work on next and then

    they'd be like oh i want to create

    another maze game but we're going to

    make it

    slightly different and so they weren't

    really pushing themselves as hard as

    they could

    so after a couple variations on maze

    games i just sat down with them and

    went okay how can you challenge yourself

    to do something new and different

    so you weren't just doing the same thing

    over and over so they were having fun

    but they're also diving deeper into what

    they're doing now that being said

    my intense focus on play in the

    classroom can

    lead to lifelong engagement without

    necessarily developing expertise and

    domain

    so yeah kids might have enjoyed my class

    but it didn't

    it doesn't necessarily mean they

    actually obtained expertise within

    computer science over multiple years

    they may have just realized yeah i enjoy

    this thing it's fun cool but i'm not

    going to become an expert in it however

    i would argue that a premature focus on

    deliberate practice can lead many to

    burn out within a domain

    if they aren't willing to engage in the

    drudgery of increasing their own

    performance

    so if i had forced deliberate practice

    on kids that i was working with

    many of them likely would have not

    enjoyed computer science so you have to

    figure out your own balance between

    play and deliberate practice in the

    classes and experiences you facilitate

    another question that i have is if

    deliberate practice can only be

    sustained for a limited amount of time

    each day

    when should students engage in

    deliberate practice so for example which

    domains or subject areas

    should they focus on and why those over

    others if we need to limit

    deliberate practice so there's time for

    recovery what does that mean about how

    we structure

    in school and out of school time so for

    example how much homework should kids

    have

    and how frequently should kids engage in

    homework how many breaks throughout the

    day should kids have

    in between classes many olympians and

    expert performers

    sleep more than people who are

    non-experts one of the reasons

    why is because they take naps in the

    middle of the day do we need to include

    nap time

    if we're going to structure school

    around developing expertise i don't know

    and speaking of so if deliberate

    practice has requirements

    for rest between sessions how can we

    model

    and support rest between learning

    experiences should there be more recess

    should there be a nap time should there

    be days off in between intense work days

    here's a quote from page 391 quote when

    expert performers make a full-time

    commitment to the domain

    our studies show that they spend between

    related activities

    less than half of that time about 25

    hours per week

    is spent on deliberate practice and this

    time is distributed across the entire

    week in practice sessions of limited

    duration

    end quote in other words if you're

    listening to this and like wow

    deliberate practice is awesome i'm going

    to do this eight hours a day every

    single day of the week

    that's not going to go well for you or

    the kids that you work with so

    scheduling that time for rest

    another question that i have is which

    phase of deliberate practice

    are the students you work with and how

    does or doesn't your class align with

    those phases

    so are they in the introduction phase

    are they in the deliberate practice

    phase

    or are they in the phase of full-time

    engagement in deliberate practice

    if you're a k-8 teacher you might be in

    phase one if you're in high school you

    might be in phase two

    if you're working with undergrad or

    graduate students you're probably in

    phase three

    with the students that you're working

    with now that being said another

    ethical thing to ponder if it takes

    about 10 years to become an expert in a

    domain

    what does that say about the ethics of

    having new teachers working with

    students

    is it ethical to have a first year

    teacher working with students without

    much support students in that class

    likely will not receive

    as good instruction as somebody who has

    been doing this for multiple decades and

    engaging in deliberate practice around

    their pedagogy

    another ethical question is what about

    the ethics of grades based on

    performance

    for example is it fair to be graded on a

    curve

    when somebody like myself could go home

    and practice

    every day for multiple hours whereas

    some of my peers

    did not have private instruction in

    music did not have the ability to

    practice at home because they had to

    work multiple jobs in high school

    etc was it fair for them to be assessed

    on their performance abilities compared

    to somebody like myself

    who had many other advantages and

    privileges i'd argue

    no but it's something that we should

    talk about is if we are actually

    developing expertise and we're taking

    into account all these things that we

    need to consider that impact the

    development of expertise

    grades might be an unethical measurement

    that we use in classes

    if we're basing it on performance think

    of the kids who are able to go home and

    work

    on their projects and think of the kids

    who don't have access to internet or

    devices at home

    the grade base on performance is

    unethical when some kids are able to go

    home and continue to refine their

    abilities

    and other kids are not all right so

    those are some of my lingering questions

    and thoughts

    i know i had a lot of them on this one

    again this is heavily influenced in my

    own thinking

    in education and the way this is that i

    learn so i highly recommend checking out

    the show notes

    in the app that you're listening to this

    on or going to journalis.com and

    reading the actual paper by clicking on

    it in the show notes thank you so much

    for listening to this episode

    i hope you stay tuned next week for

    another interview

    and two weeks from now for another

    unpacking scholarship episode

    if you be so kind please consider

    sharing this with somebody or providing

    a review on whatever platform you're

    listening to this on

    i hope you're all staying safe and are

    having a wonderful week

Article

Ericsson, K., Krampe, R., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406.


Abstract

“The theoretical framework presented in this article explains expert performance as the end result of individuals’ prolonged efforts to improve performance while negotiating motivational and external constraints. In most domains of expertise, individuals begin in their childhood a regimen of effortful activities (deliberate practice) designed to optimize improvement. Individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to assessed amounts of deliberate practice. Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning.”


My One Sentence Summary

This paper debunks the notion of innate abilities within a domain and describes the role of deliberate practice in achieving expert performance.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • Are we designing classes, experiences, or curricula to develop expertise or general knowledge?

  • What kind of a balance should we strive for between play and deliberate practice?

  • If deliberate practice can only be sustained for a limited amount of time each day, when should students engage in deliberate practice?

    • If we need to limit deliberate practice so there's time for recovery, what does that mean about how we structure in-school and out-of-school time?

    • If deliberate practice requires rest between sessions, how can we model and support rest between learning experiences?

  • Which phase of deliberate practice are the students you work with and how does/n't your class align with those phases?

  • If it takes about ten years to become an expert in a domain, what does that say about the ethics of having new teachers working with students?

    • What about the ethics of grades based on performance?


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