Written by I just don’t know what exactly. So, mostly as stream of consciousness and in chronological order…
*This started when Lisa Thumann tweeted about a keynote speaker at BLC ’10 who referred to the so-called “10,000 hour rule” for mastery or expertise.
*I asked her if the speaker had a warrant for that knowledge claim beyond Malcolm Gladwell (who I knew wrote about this in Outliers).
*She confirmed that the speaker did, in fact, cite Gladwell in connection with the “10,000 hour rule.”
*George Siemens chimed in with a more learned take on the situation and linked to a research handbook and a related blog post where he commented with some information relevant to the “10,000 hour rule.”
*The post itself is interesting as an exercise in research and pushed me to think about how to create an activity for doctoral students in educational leadership wherein they identify a commonly accepted “fact” and trace it back through the literature to see if that fact holds up.
*In the meantime, I recently learned about yolink. I don’t exactly know what it is other than it seems to be like Google alerts, only better. So, I took yolink on a test ride. I created an alert for [10,000 hours Gladwell].
*In the first day, I got an alert with three blog posts: One, two, three, and one web link.
*On the second day, I got one web link.
That web link from the second alert is most telling. Granted it’s a website about horse racing tips, but the author writes:
“While not famous amongst the general public in his own right, Gladwell is a New York Times bestselling author whose research on extraordinarily successful people led him to come up with the 10,000 Hour Rule.”
So, apparently, Gladwell came up with the 10,000 hour rule. Ha! Hardly.
I have little to no subject matter expertise here (irony?), but if you read the comment from George Siemens to which I linked above, and work through some of the information, you can learn pretty quickly that all Gladwell did was synthesize selected research about mastery and expertise. There’s nothing inherently wrong with syntheses of research. But, there are problems when research is selectively chosen for a synthesis with no explanation of how that research was selected. And, furthermore, there are problems when the person(s) who conduct syntheses of research are cited as THE source of the findings.
We can quibble about the quality of Gladwell’s work, and I’m on record with a negative take on some of his work. But, what I won’t stand for are individuals given a stage and a big audience (of educators!) who point to Gladwell as the source of the research. Malcolm Gladwell did NOT come up with the 10,000 hour rule.
So, again, I don’t know what this is all about and why it has me all worked up. But, there’s something here…something about, but not limited to, research, original sources, crap-detection and, well, expertise.
Help me make meaning of this?
Thanks for the ping!
Not only do I feel honoured for the attention given by Siemens and you to my little exercise, but I share your take on much of this.
One is the Gladwell angle.
Nobody’s going so far as to say that Gladwell is intellectually dishonnest. After all, he did cite Levitin in his book and probably never said that he had come up with this “rule.” But he’s not going the extra mile to make sure that people understand the cognitive origin of this rule or the distinction between his work and that of others. Technically, he isn’t dishonest. But he could do be a better player in the knowledge game.
Which may lead us to an academic angle, in the context of “academic integrity.”
If Gladwell were a graduate student taking a qualifying exam or a faculty member going for tenure, he might “have some explaining to do.” Not that his behaviour is reprehensible, but colleagues who know half a thing about cognitive science would raise their eyebrows. Tough questions are common in the two situations I mention. In this case, it might be as blunt as “apart from some digging for real-world examples, what did you do which we can call ‘research’?”
Of course, Gladwell’s book isn’t meant as a research publication in the academic sense. But he does frame it as “research.” Those of us who care about research might use this as a test case. In a way, that’s what I was trying to do. And your monitoring of mentions of that paternity goes in the same direction.
In fact, to talk about academic integrity, it may help us talk about “degrees.” To be a model of academic integrity, a scholar would have to not only cite her sources and dig down for everything related to her core ideas, but also provide the world with the tools necessary to put her research in a broader scheme of things. It’s not just about honesty, humility, and credit. It’s about contributing to the broader world of knowledge. Eventually, e name of the person who first came up with an idea you’ve had isn’t so important. After all, you “own” your ideas in some ways, they’re not literally “st olen” from somebody else but are created from encounters with others. But what is important is to give back to the “knowledge community.” It’s closer to the spirit of the GNU Public License than to a lesson from “Writing 101.” (The popular version of actual writing classes…)
There’s also something fascinating about tracing back ideas. Not everyone is into epistemology in this sense, but since this rule/claim is itself related to learning and knowledge, it’s a good fit for this kind of exercise.
One thing these exercises show is that each of us holds some “knowledge” on a level more similar to “common sense” than on the level of scientific analysis. Scientists, especially those in hard sciences, do exercises about “how we know what we know” because this is exactly what the scientific method is about. So, in science, it’s not useless to ask “how do we know that the Earth is a sphere?” Sure, it feels awkward. But that’s kind of the point of the experience. No, we don’t “just know it.” And, no, reliance on e authority (scientific or otherwise) of people who share this tidbit of knowledge isn’t the route a scientist is supposed to take. So, using a quote or citation as proof doesn’t fly. You have to do the exercise, even if it’s just a thought experiment.
In fact, a number of scientists who apply this in their work seem to put it on the side when they talk about other matters,
There’s also, obviously, the educational angle. We’re talking about training and talent. The least we can do is to put things in context. Are all learning processes similar, in this respect? Is education about making people into experts? Since the basis of the claim is that innate talent doesn’t exist (at least in the sense that you can’t be born a skilled composer or chess player), what does this mean for the educational world? Can it mean, for a simple example, that we can get rid of the notion of “gifted” students?
Then, there’s the personal quest. And it seems that the “something” which is here is similar to what motivated me and may motivate others.
I’m no expert on expertise and, clearly, I know much less than George Siemens on the subject. But it’s something which fascinates me.
To use your chronological method, adding a bit of personal background…
I was trained as an ethnographer and a musician. From a young age, I’ve been skeptical about the idea of innate talent. Something just didn’t seem to fit. Sure, there might be some personal characteristics which “predispose” people to learn some things more easily than others in certain contexts, the same way they’re more likely to become tall or sensitive to heat. But it seemed very clear that you can’t just be a “born mathematician” or a “trumpet player from birth.” Even those who believe in predestination may still agree that training is required to “fulfill your potential.” Yet some people act, including in educational situations, as if “natural talent” were the thing to which education is an alternative. Something’s strange, there. As a Swiss citizen and the son of a Piaget-trained teacher, I’m as much into Rousseau as the next person. And Sir Ken Robinson clearly has something when he talks about the negative effects of formal education on a sense of creativity. Yet the “talent model” seems to have some deep flaws, as I’m sure Robinson, Piaget, and Rousseau would agree.
So, I’ve been interested in this issue for a while. My belief that “talent” was an inappropriate notion regularly got confirmation.
One such confirmation is when I first heard of this notion of “ten years or 10,000 hours to become an expert in a field.” it was mentioned by someone who had known Levitin personally.
That same notion came up on several occasions (including Levitin’s biok) before I went to a talk given by Gladwell. In that talk, Gladwell exposed a number of ideas. Before he mentioned the “rule,” I actually tweeted that he seemed to be heading toward this notion. In a way, the talk was a lead up to that “rule” and followed by applications of that same idea, applied to specific contexts such as the history of a band, recruitment of athletes, or teaching assessments. It all flowed fairly well in a well-rehearsed way. Surprisingly not that skilled as a presentation, but quite effective as a demonstration.
A few things struck me during Gladwell’s talk. One is that he came very close to describing Mendel’s well-known case, to the extent that I asked Gladwell about it, after the talk. Another is how little “lip service” he paid to the cognitive literature on the subject. It didn’t feel that unusual in the context (most people in the room were marketers and I doubt they wanted to hear that much talk of cognitive psychology). But it did sound as if Gladwell was claiming ownership of that “rule.” in other words, while he didn’t flat out say “this is my theory,” he did associate “his research” with the appearance of this “rule.” I don’t remember the specific wording but it was something similar to: “in my research, I found this idea that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert.” There was enough syntactic ambiguity for “plausible deniability” but it still struck me that he didn’t seize the occasion to give credit to cognitive sciences. I mean, I’m pretty sure he didn’t say “in my research I encountered work by cognitive psychologists like Dan Levitin (who’s right here in Montreal) about the time it takes to become an expert and it seems that the common figures given are ten years or 10,000 hours.” It’d be interesting to go back to a recording of the talk to find out what he sad exactly, and I might be wrong.
But, what is clear, is that people in the audience “got the message” that Gladwell was “the author of this theory.” I distinctly remember the words “your theory” in an audience members question and Gladwell’s non-denial in his answer. Maybe I should have taken him to task. But it wasn’t my crowd and people had paid too much money not to have wisdom showered on them by an authority figure.
After the talk, I was left with a definite impression that Gladwell had a dubious relationship with knowledge. He’s in a class of people I might call “popular intellectuals,” along with a number of authors whose status is measuredin book sales. Some of them have academic positions and you might say that they do the work expected of “public intellectuals.” But, to follow on the class terminology, they neither “control the means of (knowledge) production” nor do they “generate enough (knowledge) surplus to reinvest in (knowledge) production.” In other words, they’re pretty much the intellectual capital’s equivalent to petite/petty bourgeoisie (though, in terms of economic capital, they’re often closer to haute bourgeoisie). The “(knowledge) working class” in this model would include not only research assistants and graduate students (who may be closer to lumpenproletariat, in more ways than one), but all of these knowledge workers in diverse fields outside of formal research. The “(knowledge) capital class” in the same model would include the upper echelons of the research elite, people who wield large amounts of power in academia and “R&D.” To finish up the conflict theory angle, we could say that “the masses” are disenfranchised,” that they are “alienated from the (knowledge) product of their labour.
It may all sound like a bit much, but as I’ve been teaching introductory sociology, it was difficult to avoid. (And it’s fun to see how the model may fit the analogy.)
To go back to “what’s here.” You seem to be on track to getting others to play this game. As many games, it can produce interesting results with limited direct effort. Sounds like a fascinating application of the lessons from the cognitive study of expertise.
(Apologies for typographical mistakes. I’m writing this from an iPad.)
What’s the obligation of a presenter to give all of his or her sources DURING THE SPEECH?
Also, this reminds me a little bit of the whinging done by a very well-known Ed Admin senior scholar about the fact that Rick DuFour gets all of the credit for popularizing the research done by herself and others. Jon, you know how poorly academics present and/or write for general audiences. We desperately need intermediary translators like Gladwell and DuFour and Alfie Kohn and …
@Scott: In terms of honesty, the same expectation as for someone who plays a cover for a band.
Alexandre, that’s an interesting point. But when I present, for example, I could easily pull from 20 to 60+ different sources. And I try pretty hard to give attribution where it’s due (e.g., “As David Warlick says…”). Do I have an obligation to at least mention every single one of those sources DURING MY SPEECH? If I do, would you want to listen to my now-perhaps-overly-academic presentation?
This post, Jon, (and the closing ISTE keynote) has got me thinking. Thanks.
At the very least, I’d expect someone to say something like, “There’s a body of research on mastery/expertise…that was most recently synthesized by Malcolm Gladwell.” That is, I expect a certain amount of precision.
So, I’m not blaming Gladwell (or DuFour); it’s the next-in-line messenger who ought to be clear/precise. Using Alexandre’s example, I wouldn’t go around saying that “Killing Me Softly” is by the Fugees. I should, at least, say that “Killing Me Softly” was most recently remade by the Fugees. It’d be best if I gave credit to Roberta Flack, but I certainly shouldn’t mislead people into thinking that the Fugees were the first to perform that song.
And, BTW, I’m guilty of commenting having only read Scott’s comment and Alexandre’s reply to that. Somehow, I initially missed Alexandre’s first (much longer) comment. Yes, Alexandre, yes, yes, yes. Thanks so much for taking the time to post such a thoughtful comment.
I now find myself wondering if this is at all related to my concerns about use of the term “PLN” (shorthand for “Personal Learning Network”). I’m reasonably excited about the affordances for informal, professional learning from social media. But, I’m also cognizant of a developing body of information on connectivism and connected/social learning started (I think…how’s that for intellectual honesty) by (here he is again) Georege Siemens, Dave Cormier and Stephen Downes. There are important ideas in play behind a “PLN,” and those get lost when people are imprecise in their usage of the term.
Scott, I’d say that you can still separate what’s truly yours from what’s borrowed. “These are the things I’m bringing to the table, what’s new about my approach.” And without specific attribution, you can still address the fact that a certain idea is common in the literature, or that you got it from a scholar in a given field. In fact, I’m particularly fond of hearing someone explain how they came up with an idea, let’s say during a dinner conversation with a friend or after reading a magazine article. It may sound like anecdotes (which they are), but they reveal a lot about the thinking process, can help others get inspired to think up cool stuff, and it shows that we’re all on he same boat. Maybe I’m too much of an academic but I think htst even a little intellectual honesty goes a long way.
I do agree that we need popularizers. In fact, the author from whom Gladwell may have originally got this “rule” is a good example. Dan Levitin writes in an engaging manner which is explicitly distinct from academic writing. Yet he doesn’t sacrifice intellectual honesty in the exercise. In other words, I imagine that he can help people learn, which is rather important in social contexts, even outside of formal education.
Also, I think encyclopedias (including Wikipedia) play an important role in some societies. Especially if critical thinking is encouraged. Something similar can be said about journalism, but I’ve been reacting to journalism (the trade, not the people who take it) for more than 25 years and I’ve seen too much harm done by even careful journalism not to be wary of journalism-style popularization.
As an aside, the purpose of my exercise (and my conclusion, even after reading KA Anders Ericsson who wrote so directly on this): we’re talking about something more like a “rule of thumb,” here, not some fundamental principle. If the “take-home lesson” is merely about the time required to become an expert, we’re losing an opportunity To engage in something rather important, in terms of learning. Sure, Gladwell addresses some of the implications of this “rule” for the notion of “talent.” But the key to the talent puzzle wasn’t given in that talk. Maybe it’s found in the book (after all, Gladwell was doing a booktwlk, which is w specific form of advertising). But we ended up with a bunch of people who midget implement programs based on hours instead of deliberate practice. And that can be an undesirable effect of Gladwell’s work.
Jon, funny you should use Killing Me Softly with His Song as this is a song with an interesting history. It was composed by Lori Lieberman after she went to a show by Don McLean. So a song which was so personal for Lieberman became associated with Roberta Flack, who presumably had a different life experience and may not have reacted the same way to McLean’s song, the original prompt for the Lieberman one. The Fugees brought other dimensions to the same song. The result is that we get something broader than any individual involved, though it’s very specifically about an internal experience. It’s not universal (very little in music is truly universal), but it crosses boundaries of individual experience and touches people more widely in that way. The “genius” there is difficult to locate.
As for PLNs…
I actually have a lot to say about this (yes, even more than about Gladwell). So I’ll probably postpone my response on it.
Let’s just say that I’m fascinated by social networks from the perspective of social sciences (Penny Eckert and Jeremy Boissevain, among others, have done fascinating work). And I do find it works really well online and/or in learning contexts. Haven’t noticed much abuse of the PLN concept, contrary to most other notions circulating in some circles about “communities,” “influence,” etc.
So educational researchers are poor at presenting information to general audiences (or I think more accurately aren’t rewarded for making their work more accessible to the general public). Gladwell and the popularizers tend to glance over the research, picking and choosing what they “make their own”.
The reality is that no one (the mass audience) cares about the means (the footnotes) they only care about the message. As long as we have two distinct groups; researchers and popularizers, we will have this problem.
The bigger problem I see is that the way information is presented by the popularizers, it is difficult to followup on sources because you have to do all the legwork trying to find the original research.
Secondly and more dangerously, readers (or listeners in the case of speeches) assume that everything that is presented as ‘research’ has the same level of validity because the popularizer is mentioning it and since he is “a valid source” everything is therefore valid. The popularizer can lead us both ashore and astray without regulation.
Jon, here’s my take, though you might not find it helpful.
A person who works a 2000hr year may if she’s lucky spend 1000-1400 hours on topic. A person may, become an “expert”, after eight years of such fortunate work.
10,000 is a nice roll-off-the-tongue rounding of 8×1200. Or 10×1000. 7×1400. Its not 9000 or 11000 because no one has a clue in reality; so they pick the most memorable figure.
5,000 hours would be similarly round, but give only 3-5 year of concentration. We’d give very few people the title of expert after that time. Similarly, 15,000 hours would be 10-15 years of such attention. We might not notice an “experts” work until that point, but afterward we’d say, “Oh, yes, they’ve been an expert for awhile”.
Do numbers like this have more meaning than this? If not, looking for deeper meaning or original source seems a fool’s errand. Whether B. Franklin, Augustine, Aristotle, or David first wrote it down seems the work of some other academic department.
on, here’s my take, though you might not find it helpful.
A person who works a 2000hr year may if she’s lucky spend 1000-1400 hours on topic. A person may, become an “expert”, after eight years of such fortunate work.
10,000 is a nice roll-off-the-tongue rounding of 8×1200. Its not 9000 or 11000 because no one has a clue in reality.
5,000 hours would be similarly round, but give only 3-5 year of concentration. We’d give very few people the title of expert after that time. 15,000 hours would be 10-15 years of such attention. We might not notice an “experts” work until that point, but afterward we’d say, “Oh, yes, they’ve been an expert for awhile”.
Do numbers like this have more meaning than this? If not, looking for deeper meaning or original source seems a fool’s errand. Whether B. Franklin, Augustine, Aristotle, or David first wrote it down seems the work of some other academic department.
Would it not be more interesting to education consumers (students) to get teachers (and teachers’ teachers) to absorb broader content? How do we bring truly liberal education into the 21st century? How do we introduce eight grade social studies teachers to the breadth of topics applicable, from Adam Smith’s economics to abbreviated systems theory to solid history (complete with dates, OMG!) to land surveying, to accounting (both GAAP and government) and chemistry and ethnography and plain, rich mastery of the art of Rhetoric?
While Joe says this much more eloquently than I, this post resonated with me so I still wanted to comment.
Gladwell’s situation is quite the example of this happening on a large scale. As Joe says, he is a “popularizer” like many that seem to be placed upon high for “their” presentation and synthesis of other people’s ideas. It is a great skill to have that leads to quite a successful career.
Sadly, we call for our students to be critical thinkers yet it seems we are not as critical ourselves. Perhaps that is a bit harsh and the reality is we don’t feel we need to be critical. Instead, we like to have synthesized and overly-simplified ideas washed over us. This leads to such a superficial level of understanding that causes idea hopping and lack of transfer — it also creates in people’s mind the belief that they have an “expertise” in an area that simply is not there.
This is quite common if you attend or pay attention to many ed tech conferences – some of late give clear examples of this. So many people want to be the big name speaker or maintain their status as a big name speaker, but the ideas usually lack depth, innovation, and uniqueness. If you can synthesize and harvest various social media outlets and then put on a good show, you will be seen as the voice. Again, Joe hit the nail on the head with his discussion of “popularizers”.
I guess the world needs both (see Tipping Point hahahaha).
However, I wish even the popularizers would leave Breadcrumbs. This is where I disagree with Scott about citing. You do have an obligation if you believe in intellectual property and a sense of community. One does not have to stop their presentation or lose flow by citing each and every thing.
However, breadcrumbs are simple where you link the slide to a source page. This is quick and easy. It also allows for deeper growth for individuals interested in the materials instead of accepting the synthesis presentation as all they need.
As always Jon, thank you for addressing topics that challenge us beyond the normal conversations.
@Alexandre – thanks so much for your contributions here. I especially appreciated the lesson on the history of “Killing Me Softly.”
As for “PLNs,” check this out: http://edupln.ning.com/ It’s dubbed “The personal learning network for educators.” One of my non-negotiables is that if folks use the term PLN, it cannot be preceded by “the.” If it’s personal, how could it be “the?” Furthermore, that space is not a PLN. It’s not even a network. It’s a networkING space. That’s one of many examples of the bastardization of some otherwise pretty important concepts behind “the PLN.”
@Ed, we can quibble about breadth vs. depth, but I think one of the ideas that’s “here” lies at the intersection of research and crap detection. IF students are freed to explore a topic about which they’re passionate, they need some serious information literacy skills. They need to know how to find original sources. It’s too easy for students to set up a Google alert or a Yolink alert like I did and start to conclude that Malcolm Gladwell is the source of the 10,000 hour rule.
@Ryan and @Joe – I often hear that the so-called “21st Century Skills” are not really new, and mostly I think that’s correct. But, in the information age, doesn’t critical thinking or, better, critical information literacy become much more paramount than before? It was never good to accept what one hears or reads without thinking critically about it, but now everyone has a platform of participation and we need kids (and adults!) to always question what they hear, read, see, etc. So, IF we continue down this dichotomous path of popularizers vs. researchers, it’s not really OK to accept either source. We should all consider all of the available evidence and make meaning of it individually and collaboratively. That’s hard to teach kids, but super important, IMHO.
@Jon: I hear you on the misuses of “personal learning network.” In a way, you could say that it became a buzzphrase almost instantly and this has interesting implications. One dimension of this is the reason for the “virality” of this phrase. It’s almost as if we needed it. Many of us noticed something going on and, as soon as it was named, it was easier to discuss this phenomenon we were noticing.
The “sad” thing (if you care about precision) is that buzzphrases are often misused (see “Web 2.0″). They also tend to annoy some people who dislike clichés (from what I’ve noticed, English-speakers’ language ideology often reject clichés).
For what it’s worth, any social network is “personal” in the sense that it’ll differ from one individual to the next. [We use "ego-based" to label this notion (because we label the focal point of the graph as "Ego"), but there's potential confusion with "ego" as individual pride.]
So, there’s a certain redundancy in “personal network.”
But if each individual network is connected in whatever way to another individual network, it means that they’re actually subnetworks of a broader network. The Internet is, in actual fact, a single network. And while it’s used for many purposes which aren’t typically conceived as “learning” in the formal sense, the fact that it’s based on information goes well with the idea that it’s one broad Learning Network. There are many other ways to define the ‘Net and I’m sure many people who use the determinate article think about something much more specific, but it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say “The Learning Network” the same way we say “The Web.” Not sure what Tim Berners-Lee would have to say about this (especially since the Web is but one part of the Internet), but it strikes me that the notion of a “World Wide Web” based on semantic connections isn’t too far to the notion of a “Global Learning Network.”
Besides, the sphere of people who are using the ‘Net for explicit formal learning is probably connected in something of a subnetwork, with a relatively strong Small World Effect. Especially among people who can read English. We could almost play the “Six Degrees of Stephen Downes” game to see how it works.
Going back to “personal”… It sounds like a stretch but you could even parse the noun phrase as being about a network of “personal learning.” Quite likely, this wasn’t the intention when the phrase was coined and chances are that those you perceive as misusing the concept don’t really have a notion of “personal learning.” But it’s actually quite strong a notion. We’re actually talking about a very specific attitude toward learning, which involves the use of personal connections instead of, say, a strict hierarchy of roles (which can still be in a network) or some “machine-based” connections. Based on how people act, it’s more accurate than “social learning network” would be. Going back to my own pet peeve about the way “social” is used in discussions of online anything, the “personal” part makes it more honest!
As you probably guess, I’m not defending people’s use of the phrase. And I’ve rarely used it myself, though I’ve been fond of the phenomenon behind that phrase. It even seems to me that the phrase is gaining currency “right now” in that it’s spilled in the mainstream (for instance, Chris Brogan shared a video about it). As I start using the phrase myself, it seems to be better-known than a few months ago. And it’s replacing some other phrases. To use a concept which may make people cringe, the phrase has entered “the memetic marketplace.”
I’m also a big fan of precision and I frequently voice my concerns about misuses of some concepts. It might be occupational hazard. But I’m fine with the “Humpty Dumpty approach”:
In some fields, it’s actually quite common to adopt working definitions and to “partially borrow” phrases (to selectively use some of their denotations). On occasion, it’s done as if the working definition were the widely accepted one. Or as if the working definition were a version of the original one. Going back to “Web 2.0,” there’s been a large amount of discussion about what it means. Some French politicians were taken to task because they couldn’t define it accurately. Workshops and presentations about anything with “2.0″ added are likely to bring up a discussion of what “Web 2.0″ really means. And, to be honest, I’ve been guilty of making mistakes with this. I thought it was coined by Tim O’Reilly (it wasn’t, one of his employees coined the term) and I thought that it was more limited than what it really was, especially in terms of the “social” aspect. Though these mistakes are unfortunate, there’s something to be said about the range of usage for “Web 2.0.” It’s wide enough that some people are quick to say “it doesn’t mean anything” (which is quite inaccurate, it does mean a lot of things for different people). And it’s specific enough that there’s a shared understanding of its limits (for instance, it’s not just about technical advancement in Web design). It’s one of those concepts which are relatively easy to apply and which generate a higher level of agreement than people might think, but which are flexible enough to adapt to diverse contexts, different worldviews, different frames of mind.
Which can go back to Gladwell. If the guys says: “I’m using ideas from the study of expertise to explain how you can make better decisions in recruiting and training,” he can build his own versions of diverse concepts and won’t have to address specific details. It just so happens that his version of the “10 year rule” is commonly understood in way too limited a fashion to be useful (the “deliberate practice” part is almost evacuated and people emphasise the time, as if it were merely about time on task, the exact opposite of what Ericsson says). And I find that part unfortunate. He had an opportunity to teach people about a key insight from the study of expertise and he ends up getting audience members and readers to focus on a side point.
By the way, @kevinchampion posted a copy of a useful article by Ericsson. Well worth a read. It might not be as entertaining as Outliers but I found it quite easy to understand and it contains several important things, including the origin of the “10 year” figure (spoiler alert: though similar figures exist in different fields, it’s the least important part of the “rule”).
From that article, I was eventually able to locate the likely origin of that “rule”:
Studies on the telegraphic language: The acquisition of a hierarchy of habits.
William, Lowe Bryan; Harter, Noble
Psychological Review, Vol 6(4), Jul 1899, 345-375. doi: 10.1037/h0073117
The abstract is available here and the full-text PDF is available to APA members (including institutional ones, I downloaded the article through my university’s VPN).
The one relevant quote that I found, so far (p. 358 of that article, p. 14 in the PDF):
It doesn’t seem to be the central point of the article and the authors don’t seem to expand on that “evidence,” which is unfortunate and strange, but it still sounds like it’s the earliest quote about this concept. And it does explain the learning curves in a clear way, including plateaus which, if Ericsson’s article is any indication (it sounds like it really is), still represents a key component of the study of expertise.
In some ways, that 1899 article provides more insight into expertise than anything I’ve heard or read about and from Gladwell.
Again, we need popularizers. If it weren’t for Frank Sinatra, the Paul Anka version (My Way) of Claude François’s Comme d’habitude would probably have had a much more limited reach than it eventually had. There’s nothing wrong with popularizers, especially in creative contexts. But, in conceptual domains, I personally find it unfortunate that popularized versions of concepts can not only be misuses (like the PLN case) but actually misleading ones (the Gladwell version of the “ten year rule”).
If I may be so blunt, it sometimes seems to me that the field of educational research is especially prone to a special kind of conceptual deviation. It’s the transformation of a “rule of thumb” into something of a “law.” Probably not as damaging as the misleading one or even as problematic as the misuses. But quite surprising from a field which concerns itself with learning. And, personally, I see something similar in a few other fields, like some branches of economics. In many other academic fields (from humanities to hard sciences), there seems to be more reluctance to call something a “law” or even a full-fledged “theory.” There are many things done in those other disciplines which are as problematic (ask me about the so-called “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,” the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, or even popular versions of the etic/emic distinction). But, in the study of education, this special kind of epistemological shortcut puzzles me more than some of the more damning issues. It’s more insidious a problem and it’s one which may be more difficult to reverse. When people (especially: learners in formal contexts) get to understand that they were misled, they may learn a lot. It’s almost what I call a “landmind” (something which will “blow your mind” at some later point). But when they hear that what they took to be a “rule” was merely a working hypothesis or the results of some limited-scope project, the effect is a bit… meh. “Are we still getting tested on this? Then, we’ll act as if it were based on solid evidence and were widely accepted as the consensual view by most experts.” Sure, there are ways to train students in critical thinking and information literacy. It’s probably more important to do so now than it was at other points, given the “mass” of information thrown at people from so many different sides. But, in my experience, it’s much easier to train people to think critically when you can provide them with clear benefits of conceptual readjustments. “You know how you thought that the ‘burning coals’ in the Christian Bible were about inflicting pain? Turns out, it’s really about providing people with a source of fire.” Much easier to get people to “think different” with something like that than with “yeah, but the jury’s still out on this one.”
I hope you will keep updating your content constantly as you have one dedicated reader here.
Great point of view. I for sure tell about it my to brother! Best Regards Grafik komputerowy.