The Role of Deliberate Practice

The fact that Anders Ericsson’s theory of deliberate practice (see Ericsson et al 1993) needs no introduction is a reflection of its newly found position in popular culture. Without doubt the most popular hypothesis from the deliberate practice framework is that expert performance is achieved because of an individuals’ prolonged effort to improve and not because of any special or innate talents.
 

If this alone were true then potentially, you and I and countless others would be playing on the PGA Tour by now. Ben Hogan, for example, spawned generations of golfers who were willing to beat balls for hours on end and yet so few went on to achieve the same success. Why then do some people derive more from practice than others?

According to Ericssons research, the answer is simple; when the reproduction of a skill becomes automatic (the autonomous stage of learning), no amount of increased practice/experience will bring about a marked improvement in performance. In other words the autonomous stage of learning means that a skill can be reproduced without any real stress; and here in lies the problem, in order to experience continued adaptations in the mechanisms that control performance we need stress. In the absence of stress no further adaptations will be experienced - we have arrested the development of our potential.

For this reason expert performers’ deliberately circumvent the autonomous stage of learning by seeking out increasingly demanding tasks. Such tasks continuously require them to stretch their performance beyond its current level. They overcome the detrimental effect of automaticity and in doing so acquire the cognitive skills to support their continued learning and improvement.

As Ericsson explains, the future experts and their teachers “…search continuously for optimal training activities that will appropriately strain the targeted systems to induce further adaptations…”

Perhaps then Hogan’s secret was quite simply that above all he developed the ability to practice with the most effective intensity and duration – he had what is known as the talent to practice deliberately!

References

Ericsson, K.A., Krampe, R.T. and Tesch-Römer, C. (1993) “The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance”, Psychological Review, Vol 100, No. 3; pp 363-406

Ericsson, K.A (2007) “The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the Development of Superior Expert Performance” in Charness, N; Feltovich, P,J; Hoffman, R,R &  Anders Ericsson, K (Eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, pp 683-703, New York, Cambridge University Press