Expertise Research: The comparison of experts and novices is a research approach
with the goals of understanding “how [experts] perform in their domain of expertise”
(Chi 2006, p. 21) and “how experts became that way so that others can learn to become
more skilled and knowledgeable.” (ibid., p. 23) There are several criteria to consider
persons as experts, the two most frequently used are nominal (academic titles, awards,
…) or performance-based, of which the latter one implies stable or reproducible (rather
than occasional) superior performance by the expert in his or her domain of expertise.
Analyses of expertise have proved themselves to be fruitful for research on problem
solving, often professors of mathematics are used as experts (e.g., Schoenfeld 1985;
Silver & Metzger 1989).
Results in expertise research, which are surprisingly constant for several domains,
show that (among others) experts (a) excel mainly in their own domains, (b) perceive
large meaningful patterns (“chunks”) in their domain, (c) are faster than novices at
solving problems in their domain and do so with little error, (d) spend more time
analyzing and planning problems than novices, and (e) have more accurate monitoring
skills (cf. Glaser & Chi 1988; Chi 2006). Studies on the acquisition of expertise
identified a “10-year rule” for several domains as the required period of intense
preparation to reach expert performance, see Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer
(1993) for a review of related research. Ericsson et al. (ibid.) present two studies for the
acquisition of expertise with violinists and pianists and introduce an according
framework. They argue that – with few exceptions like height in sports – the
differences in performance of experts and novices are not immutable or genetically
prescribed. Instead, those differences result in a life-long period of deliberate practice,
which is described as personalized training and activities that maximize improvement
in contrast to playful interaction, or paid work in the domain (cf. ibid., p. 368).