Can Anyone Become an Expert?
What separates the amateur from the expert is what is referred to as deliberate practice. Ordinary practice can help people become skilled at a task, but gaining true expertise involves practicing in a way that pushes the boundaries of current skill levels and knowledge. Such practice is highly concentrated and involves working on things that are outside of your current skill-level, setting goals, and receiving training and instruction from a qualified teacher.
Just putting in 10,000 hours rehearsing the same things over and over again is not enough to become a true expert. Instead, concentrated, goal-directed, deliberate practice that stretches your abilities beyond your comfort zone is what you should pursue if you want to gain expertise in any area.
While we believe that deliberate practice is the key to becoming an expert, not all researchers agree with his conclusions. Some recent studies have found that while the deliberate practice is certainly important, it is not the only factor that explains the differences between the skilled and the unskilled. While psychologists are not yet sure exactly which factors might also play a role, personality traits, physical characteristics, and overall intelligence may matter as well.
So can you really become an expert in anything as long as you are willing to devote the time and effort to it? Itâs a question that psychologists continue to ponder, although there is little doubt that practicing regularly will lead to an improvement in both skills and knowledge. Whether you might eventually be able to become a true master in that specific domain is something that may only be known once you try. Before you decide to pursue it, consider whether you have the interest, dedication, and time to commit to gaining expertise in that domain.
So what does it really take to gain true expertise? What steps do you need to follow in order to become an expert?
While the 10,000-hour rule is more pop-psych myth than reality, there is one aspect of the idea that is accurateâbecoming an expert takes a great deal of effort. People who become experts in any field devote a tremendous amount of time, energy, and hard work toward learning and practicing their skill. If you want to master something, you need to be willing to put in the time. It might not take exactly 10,000 hours, but it will take a lot.
It Takes Deliberate Practice
One study found that out of three different types of study preparation, the deliberate practice was the most effective. Researchers looked at participants in the National Spelling Bee and compared study methods with performance. Deliberate practice, defined as studying and memorizing words alone, was more effective than reading for pleasure and being quizzed by others as a study method.
Interestingly, the deliberate practice was also rated as the least enjoyable and most difficult study technique. Participants who persisted with the technique also possessed higher levels of the personality trait called grit, also known as mental toughness. The researchers suggest that this mental toughness may sometimes be an important part of being able to stick with deliberate practice. While it was less intrinsically rewarding, those with grit were able to persevere and keep their eyes on their long-term goals, making them more likely to stick with the deliberate practice and more likely to perform better during competition.
One recent study, however, found that deliberate practice may actually be less important than previously believed. Researchers Brooke Macnamara, David Z. Hambrick and Frederick Oswald found that the amount of accumulated practice did not play a major role in explaining individual differences when it came to performance or skill.
In a meta-analysis of previous studies, the researchers found that practice accounted for just 12 percent of the individual differences found in performance.
However, a practice still mattered. On almost all of the studies included in the analysis, there was a positive relationship between practice and performance. The more people practiced, the better they performed in their area of interest.
What the researchers found was that the domain itself also mattered. When it came to education, practice only accounted for four percent of differences in individual performance. This number jumped up to 18 percent for sports, 21 percent for music, and 26 percent for games. In other words, practice played a greater role in improving performance for activities such as music, athletics, and games, and less of a role for professional or educational performance.
So what else might be important in the development of expertise?
Practice is essential for developing a skill, but becoming an expert requires constantly challenging yourself to do better, learn more, and acquire new knowledge and skills. Simply rehearsing the same skills over and over again will make you better in those areas, but it wonât lead to true expertise.
The seminal educational psychologist Lev Vygotsky proposed an important learning concept known as the zone of proximal development. This zone included the skills that were just outside of a personâs current ability level. While a person might not yet be able to do these things on their own, they can achieve them with the assistance of a more skilled mentor. By continually reaching for these new skills, mastering them, and then progressively expanding this zone of proximal development, people are able to learn and develop their abilities.
Becoming an expert requires constantly working within this zone of proximal development. Even once you have become very good at a skill within a particular domain, this does not mean that even greater expertise is out of reach. More learning, more knowledge, and better performance are still possible with further challenge and practice.
While we often think that itâs intelligence that separates the experts from the rest of us, research suggests that true expertise has more to do with acquired knowledge than inborn mental abilities. Some people might be born with natural resources including physical abilities and access to the tools they need that allow them to achieve this expertise more readily. But becoming an expert takes effort and practice, no matter what your natural ability levels are at the start.
And even the experts are not always perfect. Experts do make mistakes, but theyâre also ready to catch their own errors and eager to learn from them. Mistakes are a form of feedback. They tell us not only what not to do, but also provide information on what we might try instead. Experts are able to spot these mistakes, correct course, and apply this knowledge in the future.
You may also check out Nextynsightsâs answer to What is the difference between being a professional and being an expert? to know more about it. Our in-house analysts, guided by an experienced panel of global experts, give you access to a whole range of customized intelligence studies, to guide you through fast paced business environments.Get in touch with us, to learn more about our approach, customizable studies and innovative solutions.
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