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When you’re trying to learn something new like, say, making that new sales demo really sing you need to practice. When you’re trying to gain expertise, how much you practice is definitely important. But even more important is the way you practice. Most people simply repeat the same moves. Like playing scales on the piano, over and over again. Or going through the same list of vocabulary words, over and over again……..Continue reading….

By Jeff Haden

Source: INC

Critics:

Practice changes the human body physically and psychologically as it increases in skill level. Skills that are learned through deliberate practice are specific and time spent practicing is crucial for the individual. If an individual spent a short amount of time with high intensity during practice, they are not as likely to succeed as an individual with a long-term commitment to the practice and skill.

According to Ericsson, a practice session needs to follow these criteria in order to be considered “deliberate”:

The task should be well defined, with a clear goal, and should be completely understood by the student.
The student should be able to do the task by himself.
The student should be able to access immediate feedback about his performance, so they can make the changes needed to improve.
The student should be able to replicate the tasks or similar tasks repeatedly.
The task must be designed by a teacher and must be performed following a clear instruction by the teacher.

If the practice session follows all the criteria except for the last one, then, according to Ericsson, should be called “purposeful practice”. Behavioral theory would argue that deliberate practice is facilitated by feedback from an expert that allows for successful approximation of the target performance. Feedback from an expert allows the learner to minimize errors and frustration that results from trial-and-error attempts.

Behavioral theory does not require delivery of rewards for accurate performance; the expert feedback in combination with the accurate performance serve as the consequences that establish and maintain the new performance. In cognitive theory, excellent performance results from practicing complex tasks that produce errors. Such errors provide the learner with rich feedback that results in scaffolding for future performance.

Cognitive theory explains how a learner can become an expert (or someone who has mastered a domain). Learning is closely linked to practice and motivation. Sociocultural theory applied to motivation of practice suggests that motivation resides not within the individual, but within the domain of social and cultural contexts united by shared action and activity. Thus, motivation to practice is not simply within the locus of the individual (see Incentive theories: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation), but rather the locus is the activity and its specific contexts of which the individual is a participant.

Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson writes about motivation to practice. He creates a theoretical framework for acquisition of expert performance that discusses the issue of a lack of motivation to practice. The motivational constraint, mentioned above, is important to consider as it is an important premise of Ericsson’s theoretical framework for deliberate practice. He finds that because participating in deliberate practice is not motivating that individuals must be engaged and motivated to take part in improvement before deliberate practice can even take place.

He talks about the success of children who were simply exposed to an activity for months by their parents in a fun way. These children displayed immense interest in continuing the activity, so the parents then began implanting deliberate practice. This came to be extremely successful, which Ericsson cites as proof that his theory works when put into action. He finds that children must have the passion to improve their skills before deliberate practice begins in order to really be successful.

People believe that because expert performance is qualitatively different from a normal performance the expert performer must be endowed with characteristics qualitatively different from those of normal adults. […] We agree that expert performance is qualitatively different from normal performance and even that expert performers have characteristics and abilities that are qualitatively different from or at least outside the range of those of normal adults. However, we deny that these differences are immutable, that is, due to innate talent.

Only a few exceptions, most notably height, are genetically prescribed. Instead, we argue that the differences between expert performers and normal adults reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain. Skills fade with non-use. The phenomenon is often referred to as being “out of practice”.

Practice is therefore performed (on a regular basis) to keep skills and abilities honed. It is important to keep learners from reaching a burn out or exhaustion stage while learning and practicing. Spending a fair amount of time at practice is important when learning a new skill but taking time for mental and emotional health is just as important.

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Given that the detailed original criteria for deliberate practice have not changed, could the understanding of this complex concept have improved over time? A response to Macnamara and Hambrick (2020)”.

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