Nature and Nurture Interact to Create Expert Performers

Y

2

Cognitive Ability; Researchers; Genetics; Skill Development; Gifted; Talent; Role; High Achievement; Learning Processes

10.1080/13598130701350635

1359-8139

Ericsson and colleagues have provided an exhaustive review of research on the role of training in the acquisition of expert performance and their framework continues to be invaluable for examining issues in this area. However, several researchers have noted limitations with the theoretical foundations of the deliberate practice approach. In this article, Joseph Baker comments on the authors' dismissal of the possibility of innate factors explaining expert performance. Several times in their review, the authors reject innate factors by noting that improvements in skill occur in small incremental steps rather than in "abrupt" leaps, which people are to assume would reflect the profile of development if innate factors constrain skill acquisition. Baker believes this is a straw man. No recent evidence from the field of genetics indicates that expertise spontaneously appears and most researchers agree that a devoted apprenticeship to "deliberate practice" is an absolute necessity for performance at an elite or expert level. Although Baker agrees with the authors' position that the identification of individual genes that explain expert performance has been largely unsuccessful, research is beginning to mount supporting the role of specific genes as possible "contributors" to elite performance (e.g., ACE gene; Baker & Davids, in press).

ERIC

5

2007

EJ768529