

Deliberate Practice and Performance: A Meta-Analysis [pdf] - BobbyVsTheDevil
http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Macnamara-et-al.-2014.pdf

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istjohn
TL;DR (from the conclusion):

"[Ericsson's] claim that individual differences in performance are largely
accounted for by individual differences in amount of deliberate practice is
not supported by the available empirical evidence."

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istjohn
That's a disappointing conclusion. I think most of us would like to take
credit for our success, or if we have not been so fortunate, we hold out hope
that we can be successful if we really want to and work hard enough for it.
We'd like to believe that we are truly the masters of our fate. The protestant
work ethic tells us that our sustained effort will be rewarded. This study
suggests it may be more complicated than that, and perhaps we can't take as
much credit for our successes as we'd like. On the other hand, maybe we can
beat ourselves up less for our failures and relax.

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jfarmer
The paper only says the evidence available doesn't support the conclusion,
i.e., we wouldn't be justified in claiming that deliberate practice is the
key. This doesn't mean it's NOT the key, only that we haven't been able to
measure whether it is or not so far.

The only certainty is that the evidence isn't in yet. The sociological impact
of the Protestant work ethic and whether it's value is supported by evidence
will have to wait. :D

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pjscott
But the evidence _is_ in! That's what the paper is about! If deliberate
practice were the Key to Success, then when you go to measure its effects,
you'd expect to see a lot of the variance in outcomes explained by it. Well,
lots of studies went to measure, and that's not what they found.

For claims like this, absence of evidence really is evidence of absence. (You
could state this more precisely in terms of conditional probabilities, if
you're bored and feel like doing some basic math.)

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avz
Not so fast. You seem to assume that measurement in this case is simple and
non-controversial. In fact measuring the amount of deliberate practice is very
hard. How do you account for the difference in the types of activities
individuals engaged in as children? How do you account for different levels of
dedication and passion? How do you account for different amount of support
from friends, family and institutions?

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istjohn
I'm confused. Everything you listed are things other than deliberate practice.

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mkrump
Is it so surprising that a single factor doesn't completely (or mostly)
explain performance? At the same time the paper is not saying that deliberate
practice has no effect on performance.

"What explains the variance in performance that deliberate practice does not
explain? There are probably many factors. "

...

"We conclude that amount of deliberate practice although unquestionably
important as a predictor of individual differences in performance from both a
statistical and a practical perspective—is not as important as Ericsson and
his colleagues have argued."

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ncmiller
This article is not really saying too much. Just that deliberate practice is
not always a good predictor of performance.

This is already somewhat intuitive. Many have heard of the 10,000 hour rule,
but in practice, there are so many more inter-related factors that determine
the level of achievement (e.g. history, environment, passion, work ethic,
"talent").

Trying to correlate a single factor (practice) with observed performance is an
interesting pursuit, but ultimately doesn't say much.

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nyrulez
Good to know, and something I have told new comers to development/software
engineering/computer science repeatedly. If you don't have the good programmer
or developer gene, no amount of practice is going to make you one. If you are
not great today, don't waste your time trying to practice and become one, or
waste your money buying books or doing courses. The bitter truth.

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wwweston
How would a newcomer know what level of inherent ability they have?

Also, while I think it's likely enough that there's a bell curve for ability
-- with some outliers on the lower side who would find any improvement
approaching competence very difficult, and some on the higher side for whom
mastery is easy -- most people can probably get better. Why not try?
Particularly if you find it engaging.

I'm never going to be a famous musical virtuoso, but I sure enjoy playing the
piano and the guitar (and I do it well enough that sometimes people even enjoy
listening :).

