The art of thinking · Thinking in practice
Deliberate practice
Also known as: Deliberate practice (Ericsson)
German: Gezieltes Üben
In research on expertise, deliberate practice is effortful activity designed specifically to improve performance, usually with clear goals, immediate feedback and repetition at the edge of one’s ability; K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe and Clemens Tesch-Römer introduced the concept in 1993.
- Thinking models
- Learning
In one sentence
Deliberate practice: effortful activity designed to improve performance, with goals and feedback — Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Römer (1993).
Example
Instead of writing one more procedure as usual, a writer rewrites the same procedure three times against a checklist of the errors found in the last usability test.
How it applies
- The original study: Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Römer (1993) studied violinists at a Berlin music academy and found that the best students had accumulated more hours of solitary, goal-directed practice. They distinguished deliberate practice from work, play and mere repetition.
- The debate: The popular “10,000-hour rule” came from later popular accounts, not from the study, and Ericsson rejected it as a rule. A meta-analysis by Brooke N. Macnamara, David Z. Hambrick and Frederick L. Oswald (2014) found that deliberate practice explained a substantial part of the differences in performance in games, music and sports, but not most of them, and much less in education and professions.
- Working method: Deliberate practice is defined by its design — a goal, feedback and work at the edge of ability — not by the number of hours.
Deliberate practice vs. repetition
Repetition makes a behavior automatic (see habit formation). Deliberate practice works on what is not yet automatic and needs attention and feedback; it is effortful by design.
External references
- Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.100.3.363
- Macnamara, B. N., Hambrick, D. Z., & Oswald, F. L. (2014). Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: A meta-analysis. Psychological Science, 25(8), 1608–1618. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614535810
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