After learning that my daughter practices piano every day, a friend referred me to “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance” by K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer, in hopes that I can structure my daughter’s piano practice according to the findings presented in the essay. Despite that it shouldn’t require a research paper to remind me of the importance of hard work, I’ve found the essay worth reading because it examines the various confusions regarding making performance advancement and backs up its conclusions by extensive researches done by the authors themselves and others. By looking at the title, my first impression was that deliberate practice was only relevant in the acquisition of expert performance. In fact, the essay suggests deliberate practice is essential in performance improvement of any level, making it applicable not only to those who aspire to become experts in their domains, but also to those who wish to make just enough improvements to get an external reward.
The main idea of the essay all comes down to “you reap what you sow.” To refute the traditional view that expert performance is a consequence of innate characteristics inherited in our genes, the essay explains expert performance as the end result of prolonged deliberate practice—activities to enable optimal learning and improvement of performance. In particular, the essay contends that “the amount of time an individual is engaged in deliberate practice activities is monotonically related to that individual’s acquired performance.” It’s worth noting that the essay doesn’t deal with the quality of the practice, which is a whole other topic, by assuming the subjects under investigation all maintain the highest quality of practice. To test their ideas, the authors have carried out two studies. One was to assess the current and past levels of deliberate practice among three groups of violin students from the same music academy: the best violinists, the good violinists, the music teachers being the least advanced; and the other was to extend the findings of the first study to another domain of expertise with subjects having more extreme differences in proficiency, subjects comprised of young expert pianists recruited from an advanced soloist class at a music academy and amateur pianists recruited through newspaper and campus ads. In both studies, the authors have discovered that more advanced performance is always associated with more accumulated amount of deliberate practice. As all scientific papers do, this essay provides a lot of supporting details to support the main idea. Here I will cite some of them that I have found interesting.
Genetic Attributes
To refute the commonly held conception that genetic attributes have a major impact on individuals’ ultimately attainable performance, the essay claims that even the most anatomical characteristics are remarkably adaptable to intense physical activity extended over long periods of time. Nevertheless, it acknowledges that the influences of a few genetic factors remain to be understood—for example, individual differences in activity levels and emotionality—and that they may predispose some individuals toward deliberate practice in a specific domain and allow these individuals to sustain it for extended periods. It follows that, unlike the behavioral approach, which in its extreme claims “Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything,” this essay recognizes that in the end of the day not everyone could become a mathematician even if they were given the best opportunity to practice, because not all of us have such strong interest in mathematics that allows for sustained practice.
Innovation
According to the essay, at the time when mere repetition of the work can’t increase performance beyond a certain level, only deliberate efforts with the reorganization of the skills can enable further improvement. In contrast to it, a lot of times when I can’t make progress on a problem, I find myself desperately trying the same method again and again. Next time when I get stuck, I am going to develop a new approach to solving the problem. In addition, active search for innovative methods to improve performance is especially critical to advance from the expert level to eminence, because as the essay states, while it’s sufficient to master the existing knowledge and techniques to reach the status of an expert in a domain, to make an eminent achievement one must go beyond the available knowledge to produce a unique contribution to the domain.
Being Deliberate
In contrast with the notion that it should be quick and easy for truly talented individuals to achieve their highest performance, the essay maintains that it takes prolonged deliberate practice across at least 10 years for an individual to attain international-level performance regardless of the domain. I have already heard about the 10,000-hour rule, which asserts that the key to achieving mastery of skills is simply a lot of practice. This essay adds value by pointing out that only deliberate practice could help with improvement in performance. The essay states that during deliberate practice, the individual must maintain full attention, so that they will have done each step correctly and notice areas for potential improvement, whereas that practice without concentration is detrimental to the improvement of performance. The essay acknowledges deliberate practice is not inherently enjoyable and suggests that in order to keep us motivated, we should bear in mind its instrumental value in improving performance. In other words, life is hard, and it can be even harder for those who want to be really good at something.
Early Start
In alignment with the idea that the accumulated amount of deliberate practice is directly related with the attained level of performance, the essay posits that the higher the level of attained performance, the earlier the age of first exposure as well as the age of starting deliberate practice, because early onset of deliberate practice contributes to the accumulated hours of practice. Based on this, I have probably done it right to have my daughter take piano classes and ballet classes before the age of four, but at the same time I have realized that it will be a tremendously difficult journey of prolonged practice if she is to become an expert in either domain.
Positive Feedback
At the end of the essay, it reminds parents and teachers the important role positive feedback plays in helping young performers with increasing motivation and boosting self-confidence. This advice couldn’t have come at a better time, because I can easily get too focused on the small details where my daughter is not doing well and as a result, fail to help her see the progress she has made through her hard work. What I should do going forward is to offer my genuine praise and appreciation for her perseverance to protect her from the doubts she will have about her ability during the ups and downs of the laborious practice.
Now let me apply my takeaways from this essay to a fictional girl named Victoria. At the earliest possible age as her development allows, Victoria starts to engage in all kinds of playful activities. As she grows, she demonstrates interests and promises in specific domains and as her parent, I support her natural preferences by providing her with opportunities for those activities she enjoys doing and by giving her positive feedback to confirm her inner feeling that she is somewhat talented. She then starts to take private classes with the best teachers in the area to allow individualized feedback, and practice on her own according to the instructions from her teachers between classes. At one point, she must decide on one domain she wants to focus on and structure her life around the daily deliberate practice that is intended to maximize her progress. Due to her superior performance compared with other children in her age group, she gets access to more resources such as participation in performances and competitions, which in turn motivates her and nurtures a positive self-image. Despite that she might go through ups and downs in her motivation to continue with the laborious practice, she needs to persevere and maintain sustainable maximum level of deliberate practice so that excellence in every detail becomes a firmly ingrained habit. Eventually she will make a living as a professional performer in her domain and possibly go beyond to make an innovative contribution.
Like most people who have tried but failed to progress to the expert level, if at any point Victoria decides to give up on deliberate practice for whatever reason, this is totally fine, because there are many other endeavors worth pursuing. Nevertheless, she can still leverage deliberate practice in whatever she is working on, from enhancing her writing skills to improving her overall health. Moreover, as the essay states, “It only requires a relatively small amount of practice to regain a previously acquired level of performance,” Victoria can pick up her previous skills when the time comes and enjoy whatever she can handle.
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