Dr. Smith was interested in how novice programmers gain expertise. He contacted a personnel manager at a local company who was also interested in this research topic as the company was rapidly expanding and was therefore
spending a great deal of money and effort training new employees. Dr. Smith signed an agreement with the local company.
The company would provide him with access to experts (gurus) and novices, and he would help the company improve its training procedures. Dr. Smith spent the next several months interviewing the experts and novices. Because it was a small company, however, Dr. Smith had access to only a very small subject population. In the end, he interviewed 2 experts, and followed 10 novices’ work over several months. In the final report, Dr. Smith included a table showing the number of languages in which each of his subjects could program and their success in training. Subjects were not named but instead were identified by numbers. When the research was complete, Dr. Smith made the report available to the personnel manager as he had promised.