Practice (learning method)
Practice, as a learning method, refers to the systematic repetition of a specific behavior or activity aimed at achieving mastery. This method emphasizes that while natural talent can contribute to skill development, the primary driver of expertise is the quality and intensity of practice. The widely recognized notion "practice makes perfect" highlights that improvement correlates with the amount of time spent practicing. However, true mastery requires more than just repetition; it involves deliberate practice, which focuses on specific goals and incorporates immediate feedback.
Deliberate practice pushes individuals beyond their current abilities, requiring them to confront challenges and embrace the possibility of failure. This approach often demands individual effort rather than group activities, allowing for enhanced concentration on skill improvement. Critics argue that other factors, such as intelligence and physical traits, also influence expertise, yet proponents assert that deliberate practice is essential for distinguishing the average from the exceptional. Research, including the "10,000 Hours Rule," supports the idea that sustained, focused practice is vital for reaching expert levels in any field.
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Practice (learning method)
As a learning method, practice refers to the systematic exercise of a particular behavior or repeated engagement in a certain activity with the intent of perfecting it. Research has shown that a person's natural talent for a skill—playing music, excelling at sports, performing surgery—only goes so far in his or her efforts toward mastery. Scholars argue that practice, and more specifically deliberate practice, is actually more important than genetics in improving and perfecting a person's abilities.
Background
When a child misses a free throw during a basketball game, hits the wrong key during a piano recital, or takes a tumble when trying to learn to ride a bike, coaches, teachers, and parents often respond with the same old adage: "Practice makes perfect." The meaning of this alliterative three-word phrase is that the more attempts a person makes, or the longer a person tries to do something, the more he or she will improve. The reason why the phrase is so popular is probably because it is true. No one ever mastered playing the guitar without spending hours upon hours plucking the strings.
The longer a person practices an activity—from knitting to tennis to memorizing a speech—the more natural the activity becomes. After a while, the person can go through the motions automatically without thinking about what he or she is doing. In some cases, a person can simultaneously engage in the activity while doing something else (e.g., knitting while watching TV or playing tennis while socializing with friends). At this point, however, the person has reached a plateau of sorts. He or she may find it satisfying to practice the skills that he or she already has mastered, but doing so will not make him or her any better. No matter how much time the person spends engaged in the activity, the person will not become a true master or expert until he or she begins to challenge himself or herself. If the person wants to improve, he or she has to stretch beyond his or her current abilities and strive to do better. Scientific research has demonstrated that the quality of a person's practice plays just as important a role in his or her mastery of a skill as the quantity of practice. From this idea, the concept of deliberate practice has emerged.
Overview
Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues first described the concept of deliberate practice in 1993. Their research showed that expert performance in an activity did not result from individuals' innate abilities but from years of intense practice. Their research led to the development of the so-called "10,000 Hours Rule," which states that a person becomes an expert after about ten thousand hours of practice. Ericsson and his colleagues, however, emphasize that the experts they studied did not just engage in ten thousand hours of practice—they engaged in about ten thousand hours of deliberate practice.
Deliberate practice involves repetition of well-defined, specific goals. The emphasis is not on improving performance of an activity overall but on perfecting a particular aspect of an activity. For example, a long jumper might focus on activities designed to improve flight time during a jump. A basketball player might engage in exercises designed to improve her layups. A musician might practice playing a piece of music from beginning to end several times in a row without missing a note. By setting specific goals, a person can determine whether a practice session has resulted in success or failure.
Deliberate practice involves specific, immediate feedback. A person who practices an activity without feedback may not realize what he or she is doing incorrectly or what he or she can do to fix the incorrect action or behavior. During deliberate practice, a coach, teacher, tutor, or another individual can provide a person with simple, direct feedback after each attempt. Such feedback can help a person understand what he or she is doing right and what he or she is doing wrong. Eventually, a person may be able to recognize mistakes on his or her own and know exactly how to correct them.
Deliberate practice requires an individual to focus on what he or she cannot do rather than on what he or she can do. For this reason, the activities usually involve quite a bit of effort. They are usually just beyond the individual's current skill level, which means the individual must push himself or herself to master the activities and may not succeed at first.
Because deliberate practice involves activities that are beyond a person's current skill level, it can be trying. An individual may get a certain amount of satisfaction from practicing a skill he or she already knows how to do. However, this type of practice does not lead to improvement. Practicing something new presents challenges, and a certain amount of failure is to be expected. For this reason, deliberate practice may not be enjoyable.
Deliberate practice usually emphasizes individual practice rather than practice with a team or group. An important goal of deliberate practice is focus. When a person practices with a group or team, he or she can lose focus, making that practice less efficient. Practicing alone allows the individual to concentrate all of his or her energy on improving a particular skill, without distraction.
Critics of deliberate practice argue that while this learning method may contribute to some differences between more and less skilled individuals, it cannot account for all the differences. They believe that factors such as intelligence level, confidence, and certain physical characteristics can play a role in the development of a person's expertise. Ericsson and his colleagues, however, maintain that aside from a few physical characteristics—a person's height in certain sports, for example—innate talents and abilities will carry a person only so far and that deliberate practice is the key to separating the average from the exceptional.
Bibliography
Barr, Corbett. "Deliberate Practice: What It Is and Why You Need It." Expert Enough, 6 Feb. 2012, expertenough.com/1423/deliberate-practice. Accessed 18 Dec. 2017.
Dubner, Stephen J. "How to Become Great at Just about Anything." Freakonomics, 27 Apr. 2016, freakonomics.com/podcast/peak/. Accessed 18 Dec. 2017.
Ericsson, Anders, and Robert Pool. "Not All Practice Makes Perfect." Nautilus, 21 Apr. 2016, nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/not-all-practice-makes-perfect. Accessed 18 Dec. 2017.
Ericsson, K. Anders, et al. "The Making of an Expert." Harvard Business Review, July-Aug. 2007, hbr.org/2007/07/the-making-of-an-expert. Accessed 18 Dec. 2017.
Ericsson, K. Anders., et al. "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance." Psychological Review, vol. 100, no. 3, 1993, pp. 363–406.
Gobet, Fernand. "Deliberate Practice and Its Role in Expertise Development." Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning, edited by Norbert M. Seel, vol. 2, Springer, 2012, pp. 917–19.
Lebowitz, Shana. "A Top Psychologist Says There's Only One Way to Become the Best in Your Field—but Not Everyone Agrees." Business Insider, 12 June 2016, www.businessinsider.com/anders-ericsson-how-to-become-an-expert-at-anything-2016-6. Accessed 18 Dec. 2017.
McNamara, Brooke, et al. "The Relationship between Deliberate Practice and Performance in Sports: A Meta-analysis." Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 11, no. 3, 22 May 2016, pp. 333–50.