Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

Starkes et al., 2001). First, a great deal of confusion surrounds the use of the term
“expert” at present. To illustrate, this term has been applied in a rather cavalier fashion to
such heterogeneous groups as inter-varsity level athletes, provincial team members,
professional performers and members of national squads—without any obvious recourse
to the ten-year rule criterion. Therefore, greater precision and consistency are required in
the operational definitions of the term expert. Second, little is known at present about the
retention of expertise in sport skills over time. In other words, how long does expertise in
a given sport last? The paucity of evidence on this question is a consequence of the fact
that most research on athletic expertise uses retrospective recall paradigms rather than
longitudinal research designs. Third, the methods used to study expertise in sport
(reviewed in the third part of this chapter) have been challenged on the grounds that they
are often borrowed uncritically and without modification from mainstream psychology.
For example, as A.M.Williams et al. (1999) pointed out, it is questionable whether
researchers can extrapolate validly from research methods in which two-dimensional
static slides are used to present dynamic three-dimensional sporting information. In
recognition of these problems, Starkes et al. (2001) recommended that future researchers
in this field should use stricter and more consistent operational definitions of the term
expert, more longitudinal research designs and more field studies than have been
employed to date.

Ideas for research projects on expertise in sport

Here are four suggestions for possible research projects on expertise in sport performers.

1 It is implicitly in sport psychology that the term “expert” applies equally to athletes and
coaches. But as yet, nobody has examined the similarities and differences between
these two types of experts (namely, performers and instructors, respectively) on recall
of information presented to them. Therefore, it would be interesting to explore “expert
versus expert” differences between athletes and coaches from a particular sport using
the pattern recognition paradigm explained earlier in this chapter.
2 It would be valuable to seek the views of expert athletes and coaches on the main tenets
of Ericsson’s theory of the stages of expertise and the nature of deliberate practice (see
Ericsson et al., 1993; Ericsson, 2001a, 2001b). A special questionnaire could be
designed for this purpose. So far, no published research is available on this issue.
3 Additional research is required on the application of thought-sampling techniques to
explore expertise in sport situations. For example, it would be interesting to equip
snooker players with “beepers” in order to investigate possible expert-novice
differences in thinking as players are forced to sit in their chairs while their opponents
are competing at the table (see earlier discussion of this phenomenon in Chapter 1).
4 In the light of the discovery by Young and Salmela (2002) that Ericsson’s criteria of
deliberate practice may not apply completely to athletes, it would be interesting to
investigate systematically the degree to which athletes enjoy the basic practice drills
required by their sport. In particular, no studies have yet been conducted in which the
“enjoyability” of practice activities has been compared using an expert-novice
paradigm across different sports.

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