“Deliberate practice”According to Ericsson et al. (1993), “deliberate practice” is a highly structured,
purposeful form of practice that is particularly relevant to the improvement of
performance in any domain. It involves individualised training on tasks that are highly
structured by skilled instructors in order to provide “optimal opportunities for learning
and skill acquisition” (Ericsson and Charness, 1994, p. 739). The goal of such practice is
to challenge the learner to go beyond his or her current level of performance. It may be
contrasted with mechanical practice which is characterised solely by mindless repetition
of basic drills. Recall that we raised this distinction between “mindful” (or deliberate) and
“mindless” practice at the beginning of this chapter.
What are the characteristics of deliberate practice? To begin with, Ericsson et al.
(1993) suggested that deliberate practice activities are “very high on relevance for
performance, high on effort, and comparatively low on inherent enjoyment” (p. 373).
More precisely, four criteria of such practice may be specified as follows. First, deliberate
practice targets specific skills that can improve performance. Second, it requires hard
work and intense concentration on the part of the learner. A practical implication of this
feature is that the duration of deliberate practice is determined mainly by the ability of the
performer to sustain his or her concentration during the training session. Third, Ericsson
believes that deliberate practice activities are not intrinsically rewarding. For example, in
sport, a top tennis player may have to spend an hour working repetitively on the ball-toss
for his or her serve rather than engaging in the more pleasant task of rallying with a
partner. A fourth criterion of deliberate practice is that it requires feedback from a
specialist coach or instructor. This feedback helps the performer to monitor discrepancies
between his or her current level of performance and some designated target standard. In
summary, deliberate practice consists of activities that require effort and attention but are
not play, not enjoyable intrinsically and not part of one’s paid employment. Let us now
turn to the issue of how expertise is held to develop from sustained engagement in
deliberate practice.
Stages in the development of expertisePeople are not born experts in anything—they become that way as a function of practice
and instruction. Based on this assumption, several stage theories of expertise have been
postulated. For example, Dreyfus (1997) proposed a five-stage model of the transition
from novice to expert. These stages are novice (stage 1), advanced beginner (stage 2),
competent (stage 3), proficient (stage 4) and expert (stage 5). An alternative approach
was proposed by Ericsson and his colleagues. This model can be explained as follows.
Inspired by the theories of Bloom (1985), Ericsson and his colleagues postulated three
stages in the development of expertise. These stages are distinguished from each other
largely on the basis of the type of practice engaged in at each phase of development.
They may be described in relation to athletic expertise as follows. In stage 1, a child is
introduced to a given sport and may display some athletic talent which is recognised by
his or her parents. At this stage, practice usually takes the form of “play”, which may be
defined as an unstructured and intrinsically enjoyable activity. During this era, the child’s
What lies beneath the surface? Investigating expertise in sport 175