Deliberate practice research is largely correlational with large unexplained variability in accumulated practice hours¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Research on deliberate practice tends to be correlational rather than prospective or intervention-based, and large standard deviations in accumulated practice hours imply practice is not the sole factor in developing expertise. → Williams 2017

Evidence¶

Williams 2017¶

Williams, A. M., Fawver, B., & Hodges, N. J. (2017). Using the 'expert performance approach' as a framework for examining and enhancing skill learning: Improving understanding of how experts learn. Frontline Learning Research, 5(3), 139–154. https://doi.org/10.14786/flr.v5i3.267

q2 · i? · no effect size printed for this finding · review · r2

The review reports, citing Ford et al. (2012) and Hopwood et al. (2016), "extremely large standard deviations in the number of hours athletes accumulate" across practice types. It notes the deliberate practice literature's findings on variance explained remain controversial (citing Hambrick et al., 2014; McNamara et al., 2014) and that retrospective data may describe social and cultural background rather than causal factors.

"Numerous researchers have reported extremely large standard deviations in the number of hours athletes accumulate in different types of practices activities during development, implying that practice (at least given issues in measurement) is not the sole factor in developing expertise"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• The RCT is considered the gold standard of research evidence because randomization ensures only the intervention could cause treatment-control outcome differences — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Accumulated deliberate practice is associated with performance, explaining a domain-dependent share of its variance: about a quarter in games, 4% in education and under 1% in professions — related
• Amount of accumulated deliberate practice distinguishes more from less accomplished musicians — related
• Long-term Buddhist meditation training induces gamma synchrony whose ratio to slow oscillations correlates with cumulative practice hours (r = 0.79) — related
• Student-generated learning issues are not the sole source on which PBL students base self-study decisions — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Evidence that domain-general perceptual-cognitive skills distinguish athletes is mixed; expertise appears domain-specific — related