The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences, Sports, and GamesKarl Anders Ericsson Excellence and the highest levels of performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games have always been an object of fascination to both scientists and lay people. Only during the last 20 years have scientists studied these levels of performance in the laboratory in order to identify their mediating mechanisms. Contrary to the common belief that innate talents are the critical factors for exceptional performance, investigators have found that acquired skills, knowledge, and physiological adaptations in response to intense practice are the primary mechanisms, mediating the highest levels of performance. This is the first and only book to examine how elite performers effect their exceptional accomplishments. The world's leading researchers on expert performance and creative achievement review theories and recent findings from many different domains of expertise on how experts optimize improvement in their performance and eventually attain excellence. Elite performers are shown to have engaged in deliberate-practice activities specifically designed to improve their performance from an early age. By age 20 they have often accumulated over 10,000 hours of practice! The essential elements of deliberate practice, such as specific goals to improve performance, successive refinement through repetition, feedback and instruction, are explicated for different domains. Although the content of practice tasks will necessarily differ from domain to domain, investigators have found invariant characteristics for the optimal duration of practice sessions, maximal amounts of daily practice, the length of intense preparation (around 10 years), and ages of peak performance. Some of the book's chapters extend the review to the acquisition of everyday-life skills such as reading, to the performance of teams of experts, and to the development of creative achievement, geniuses, and artistic child prodigies. The book concludes with commentaries by several outstanding scientists in psychology, education, and history of science who discuss the generalizability of presented ideas and raise issues for future issues. EXTRA COPY...It could be said that striving for excellence is what characterizes humanity, or perhaps what characterizes humanity at its best. Why do so few individuals ever reach the highest levels when so many start out on the Road to Excellence? In this book, the world's foremost researchers of expert performance in domains as diverse as sports, medicine, chess, and the arts explore the similarities and differences in the extended and strenuous Road to Excellence taken by the successful individuals in each domain. Their findings will intrigue and inspire readers who are themselves driven to achieve or who simply want to better understand the processes involved. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 55
Page 92
... coach - must be responsible for the athlete . " Because we have a coaching team we are able to keep an eye out for all the skaters so they won't backslide and get bad habits . " " The coaches ( at the center ) put in a real team effort ...
... coach - must be responsible for the athlete . " Because we have a coaching team we are able to keep an eye out for all the skaters so they won't backslide and get bad habits . " " The coaches ( at the center ) put in a real team effort ...
Page 94
... coaches . In either case , it is the coaches ' decision whether or not to work with the particular skater . Most coaches have an interview ( either formal or informal ) with the skater and the parents . The skater's and parents ' goals ...
... coaches . In either case , it is the coaches ' decision whether or not to work with the particular skater . Most coaches have an interview ( either formal or informal ) with the skater and the parents . The skater's and parents ' goals ...
Page 95
... coaches responded 15 hours per week . One of the coaches described this as the minimum time requirement necessary to " get to the top , " but included all practice activi- ties , not just time on the ice , in this figure . Coaches were ...
... coaches responded 15 hours per week . One of the coaches described this as the minimum time requirement necessary to " get to the top , " but included all practice activi- ties , not just time on the ice , in this figure . Coaches were ...
Contents
What Is It Anyway? | 81 |
The Acquisition of Medical Expertise | 127 |
Perceptual and Memory Processes in the Acquisition | 167 |
Copyright | |
10 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts ... Karl Anders Ericsson No preview available - 1996 |
Common terms and phrases
ability achievement acquired acquisition of expertise activities amount analysis athletes attained behavior Cambridge University Press career chap Charness chess position chess rating child prodigies chunks club coaches Cognitive Science complex correlation creative potential decision deliberate practice developmental diagnostic reasoning distributed cognition domain of expertise drawing Educational Psychology effects Elo Rating environment EPAM Ericsson evaluation evidence example experimental expert performance factors figure skating Glaser grand mean Hillsdale improvement individual differences interaction Journal knowledge Krampe laboratory Lawrence Erlbaum Associates learning levels of performance mechanisms memory Moe Norman musicians novices Patel patient phonological awareness play precocious predicted print exposure problem solving Psychology relevant representation role scientists Simon Simonton situations skaters skill acquisition Sloboda speed readers Stanovich Sternberg strategies structure talent tasks Tesch-Römer theory of expertise tion typically variables volume wrestlers York