project had as its focus an exploration of teaching expertise: what high level
practice is and more importantly how might this been developed across an edu-
cation system and across a teacher’s career (Forde and McMahon 2011 ). A key
element was an exploration of the concept of expertise.
6.6 The Concept of Expertise
The notion of accomplishment relates to the wider concept of expertise and there is
a range of definitions we can draw on here. A‘stage model’of expertise is one
construction where the acquisition of expertise is through a series of developmental
stages. Dreyfus and Dreyfus’s( 1986 : 19) model is one of the best known models of
expertise. They argue that:
A careful study of the skills acquisition process shows that a person usually passes through
at leastfive stages of qualitatively different perceptions of his (sic) task and/or mode of
decision-making as his (sic) skill improves.In this model there arefive sequential stages and in thefinal stage of expert, the
practitioner sees what needs to be done and decides how to go about this. Rather
than follow routines, an expert is able to draw from a rich repertoire to determine
the course of action.
An expert knows what to do based on mature and practiced understanding [...] While most
expert performance is ongoing and non-reflective, when time permits and outcomes are
crucial, an expert will deliberate before acting [...] which involves critically reflecting on
one’s intuition (pp. 30–32).Dreyfus and Dreyfus have generated a continuum that moves from the detached
rule-following beginner to the involved, intuitive expert at thefinal stage of
expertise. It is the ability to perceive subtle distinctions and make decisions or take
courses of action, which forge new ways or practices that distinguishes between
proficient and expert performance.
There has been much critical appraisal of Dreyfus and Dreyfus’s( 1986 ) model.
Its strength is that it illustrates two aspects:firstly, the importance of learning
through experience to a point where the‘flow’of practice seems to be seamless and
almost unknowable and secondly, the importance of tacit knowledge and‘intuition’
in skilled practice. However there are limitations in thatfirstly the process of
learning from experience is not explored and secondly, this framework suggests that
expertise is simply the accumulation of years of experience rather than outstanding
performance.
An alternative approach has been to identify and describe the characteristics of
expert practice. Building on the idea of‘tacit knowing’that experienced practitioner
display, Schon ( 1985 ) developed his notion of‘reflection-in-action’. This concept
allows us to think about the process of expert practice:‘reflection-in-action’refers
to the process whereby the expert practitioner constantly reads the environment or
problem and makes subtle adjustments to ensure a successful outcome whether this
94 M.A. McMahon et al.