Is the Deliberate Practice View Defensible? A Review of Evidence and Discussion of Issues

Frontiers in Psychology 11 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The question of what explains individual differences in expertise within complex domains such as music, games, sports, science, and medicine is currently a major topic of interest in a diverse range of fields, including psychology, education, and sports science, to name just a few. Ericsson and colleagues’ deliberate practice view is highly influential perspective in the literature on expertise and expert performance—but is it viable as a testable scientific theory? Here, reviewing more than 25 years of Ericsson and colleagues’ writings, we document critical inconsistencies in the definition of deliberate practice, along with apparent shifts in the standard for evidence concerning deliberate practice. We also consider the impact of these issues on progress in the field of expertise, focusing on the empirical testability and falsifiability of the deliberate practice view. We then discuss a multifactorial perspective on expertise, and how open science practices can accelerate progress in research guided by this perspective.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Evidence: philosophy of science meets medicine.John Worrall - 2010 - Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 16 (2):356-362.
Enhancing expertise in informal reasoning.Tim van Gelder - 2004 - Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 58:142--152.
Evidence-based Practice in Education: The Best Medicine?Anne Pirrie - 2001 - British Journal of Educational Studies 49 (2):124-136.
The view of evidence‐based medicine from the trenches: liberating or authoritarian?Jo Ann Rosenfeld - 2004 - Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 10 (2):153-155.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-08-19

Downloads
5 (#1,338,464)

6 months
2 (#658,848)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?