For the Right Reasons: The FORR Architecture for Learning in a Skill Domain

The theme of this article is that knowledge acquisition can be managed as a transition from general expertise to specific expertise. FORR is a general architecture for learning and problem solving that models expertise at a set of related problem classes. This architecture postulates initial brood domain knowledge, and gradually specializes it to simulate expertise in individual problem classes. FORR is based upon a realistic portrayal of the nature of human expertise and its application. Rather than restrict learning to a single method or a single kind of knowledge, the architecture pragmatically requires multiple, disagreeing heuristic agents to collaborate on decisions. A FORR-based program learns both from its apprenticeship to an external expert model and from practice in its domain. An implementation for game playing is described that raises interesting issues about the organization and modification of conflicting expertise, and the role that experience plays in such learning. FORR's principal strengths are its smooth integration of multiple expertise, its ability to learn many ways, its tolerance for human and machine error, its graceful degradation, its transparency, and its support for a developmental paradigm.     

Competencies for Work Domains in Business Computer Science

In order to relate expertise in business computer science to multiple criteria, the importance of competencies, as elements of expertise, for the performance of tasks and roles were investigated. Seventy-five information technology professionals (nine women and sixty-six men) from twenty-one organizations rated the importance of thirty-four competencies for the performance of eighty-six tasks and seven roles. In accordance with previous studies, knowledge of information technology, working methodically, and analytic ability were rated as important competencies for most types of tasks, and social skills were especially important for tasks related to interaction with the environment and leadership roles. By means of cluster analysis, four work domains were discerned: technique-oriented, organization-oriented, leadership-oriented, and user-support-oriented domains. It is argued that relating competencies to work domains has theoretical and practical relevance.     

Pertinence Generation in Radiological Diagnosis: Spreading Activation and the Nature of Expertise

An empirical study of human expert reasoning processes is presented. Its purpose is to test a model of how a human expert's cognitive system learns to detect, and does detect, pertinent data and hypotheses. This process is called pertinence generation. The model is based on the phenomenon of spreading activation within semantic networks. Twenty-two radiologists were asked to produce diagnoses from two very difficult X-ray films. As the model predicted, pertinence increased with experience and with semantic network integration. However, the experts whose daily work involved explicit reasoning were able, in addition, to go beyond and to generate more pertinence. The results suggest that two qualitatively different kinds of expertise, basic and super, should be distinguished. A reinterpretation of the results of Lesgold et al. (1988) is proposed, suggesting that apparent nonmonotonicities in performance are not representative of common radiological expertise acquisition but result from the inclusion of basic and super expertise on the same curve.     

Identifying Critical Cross-Cultural School Psychology Competencies

The purpose of this study was to identify critical cross-cultural competencies for school psychologists. This study used a Delphi procedure to bring together the expertise of a national sample of cross-cultural experts, including school psychology practitioners, faculty, and supervisors/administrators of whom 62% represented a racial/ethnic minority group member. To identify the competencies, we conducted an extensive literature search about cross-cultural school psychology competencies then used a questionnaire to ask expert panelists to rate the importance of the literature based competencies and to delineate additional competencies not represented in the integrated literature but based on expert opinion. The literature yielded 185 competencies and the panelists generated 75 additional competencies. Following the second questionnaire round, 102 competencies were identified as critical cross-cultural competencies. The 102 competencies cover 14 major domains of professional activities and practices for school psychologists (e.g., Academic Interventions, Assessment, Consultation, Counseling, Culture, Language, Laws and Regulations, Organizational Skills, Professional Characteristics, Report Writing, Research Methods, Theoretical Paradigms, Working with Interpreters, and Working with Parents). Implications for research and training are discussed.     

Crafting your Career: How Career Competencies Relate to Career Success via Job Crafting

This study aimed to investigate whether career competencies could enhance an employee's subjective career success in terms of perceived employability and work–home balance via job crafting behaviors. Based on Job Demands‐Resources (JD‐R) Theory, we examined a potential motivational process in which career competencies, as a personal resource, would enhance career success through expansive job crafting. The results showed that job crafting mediated the positive relationship between career competencies and both internal and external perceived employability. In addition, job crafting mediated the positive relationship between career competencies and work–home enrichment. We expected a negative association between job crafting and work–home interference, yet our results indicated that career competencies are indirectly and positively related to work–home interference via job crafting. With our findings, we add to JD‐R Theory by (1) showing that career competencies may be considered a personal resource, (2) empirically examining the role of job crafting in motivational processes, and (3) showing that enhanced subjective career success can be an outcome of motivational processes. Organisations may use these findings to implement developmental HR practices aimed at increasing career competencies and job crafting.     

How structured and unstructured sport activities aid the development of expertise in volleyball players

This study sought to analyse self-reported perceptions of how the nature of sport activities undertaken by volleyball players aided their development. Thirty highly skilled and thirty less skilled players participated in retrospective interviews to identify the nature of activities undertaken in their developmental pathways. All players reported having an early-diversified sport involvement with participation in both structured and unstructured activities. Highly skilled players differed from less skilled players by having accumulated more hours of structured sport activities, some of which were undertaken with older peers. Furthermore, highly skilled players specifically highlighted the value of their involvement in particular unstructured activities with older peers and recognized their importance for expertise achievement. These findings illustrate the importance of considering the role of unstructured (in addition to structured) sport activities in the development of expertise in volleyball. Further work is needed to verify the generality of the findings to other sports.     

Girls & Women Rock: Celebrating 35 Years of Sport & Title IX March 28–31, 2007

Fifty-seven female netballers completed a training history profile to examine whether the achievement of performance milestones and/or accumulation of sport-specific practice were indicative of an athlete's level of expertise. Similar to previous research, results revealed that expert and developmental athletes accumulated a greater number of hours in netball-specific practice relative to the recreational participants, but did not differ in the number of sports played or hours accumulated in non-netball specific practice. Interestingly, some performance milestones were achieved by the expert and developmental athletes earlier than the recreational participants, however, the developmental athletes achieved a number of milestones at an earlier age than the experts. These findings are discussed in relation to contemporary models of skill development, namely deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993) and the developmental model of sport participation (Côté, 1999) and the underpinning socio-environmental factors that may influence sport participation and subsequent development of expertise.     

The role of career competencies in the Job Demands — Resources model

This study investigated the role of career competencies as a mediator in the Job Demands — Resources model. Structural equation modeling with data from 305 young employed persons aged 16–30 years showed that career competencies are positively related to job resources and work engagement, but not to job demands and emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, career competencies had a partially mediating effect on the relationship between job resources and work engagement, and job resources had a partially mediating effect on the relationship between career competencies and work engagement. These findings suggest that career competencies may act in a similar way as personal resources in fostering work engagement. Our results underline the importance of combining research on job design and career development, and suggest that career competencies may have a role in stimulating employee wellbeing. Career counselors and HR programs may benefit from this insight by simultaneously increasing job resources and career competencies to increase employee wellbeing.     

Individual differences in chess expertise: a psychometric investigation

Starting from controversies over the role of general individual characteristics (especially intelligence) for the attainment of expert performance levels, a comprehensive psychometric investigation of individual differences in chess expertise is presented. A sample of 90 adult tournament chess players of varying playing strengths (1311-2387 ELO) was screened with tests on intelligence and personality variables; in addition, experience in chess play, tournament participation, and practice activities were assessed. Correlation and regression analyses revealed a clear-cut moderate relationship between general (and in particular numerical) intelligence and the participants' playing strengths, suggesting that expert chess play does not stand in isolation from superior mental abilities. The strongest predictor of the attained expertise level, however, was the participants' chess experience which highlights the relevance of long-term engagement for the development of expertise. Among all analysed personality dimensions, only domain-specific performance motivation and emotion expression control incrementally contributed to the prediction of playing strength. In total, measures of chess experience, current tournament activity, intelligence, and personality accounted for about 55% of variance in chess expertise. The present results suggest that individual differences in chess expertise are multifaceted and cannot be reduced to differences in domain experience.     

Musical expertise affects the sense of agency: Intentional binding in expert pianists

Intentional Binding (IB), a subjective compression of the time interval between a voluntary action and its consequence, is an implicit measure of the sense of agency (the feeling of controlling one's own actions and their outcomes). The sense of agency is influenced by experience, e.g. learning, development, or learned contingency. The present study aimed at analyzing expertise – an expert competence acquired through experience alone – as a possible means to affect the sense of agency. We compared performance of expert pianists and non-musicians within the IB paradigm with two types of sensory outcome – a piano note and an electronic sound. Pianists showed significantly greater outcome binding and composite binding for both types of stimuli. Therefore, musical expertise might influence the sense of agency, possibly due to continuous exposure to action-outcome associations during the musical training. Additionally, such effect might extend beyond the specific expertise to the other types of auditory outcomes.     

Is the impaired N170 print tuning specific to developmental dyslexia? A matched reading-level study with poor readers and dyslexics

Left N170 print tuning has been associated with visual expertise for print and has been reported to be impaired in dyslexics, using age matched designs. This is the first time N170 print tuning has been compared in adult dyslexics and adult poor readers, matched in reading level. Participants performed a lexical decision task using both word-like stimuli and symbol strings. In contrast to dyslexics, poor readers displayed similar N170 tuning to control expert readers, suggesting that impaired N170 specialization is a hallmark of developmental dyslexia. Our findings provide electrophysiological support for dyslexia being the result of abnormal specialization of the left occipito-temporal areas involved in the expert processing of print. Furthermore, as shown by correlations data and in accordance with the phonological mapping deficit theory, the impaired visual expertise for print described in dyslexics may have been caused by their core phonological deficits.     

Who's the Best? A Relativistic View of Expertise

The dictionary and the expert performance approach view an expert as one who, after sufficient training and experience in a domain, can perform the requisite tasks above a threshold level. In contrast, we argue for a performance‐based approach that implies expertise is a continuum; the experts are the best performers. Most tasks in which expertise can be demonstrated have an underlying core of judgment, including domains in which the tasks call for judgment to be overlain with performance, prediction, or instruction. To evaluate judgment, we employ the metaphor of the judge as a measuring instrument. Like an instrument, expert judgment according to the performance‐based approach has three key properties: discrimination, consistency, and validity. Validity requires ground truth and is usually difficult to establish; but the other two properties are readily observable, and they are combined in the Cochran–Weiss–Shanteau index. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Developmental Path to Expertise in Group Psychotherapy

This paper describes a trajectory by which an individual achieves expertise in group psychotherapy. Five developmental stages are posited. In the decisional-anticipatory stage, interest is developed in group psychotherapy. In the trainee stage, the individual masters the knowledge base of group psychotherapy and obtains fledgling experiences in a group. In the novice stage, the individual obtains additional experience in running groups and becomes socialized into a community of group psychotherapists. In the proficiency stage, the individual narrows his or her group psychotherapy focus and obtains more specialized experience in that area. At this time, supervisory and consultation skills are often developed. In the final stage of expertise, the expert must engage in a process of recognizing its limits and must devise ways to maintain it. Research that focuses on one aspect of expertise, level of experience, is reviewed. Three dimensions of difference are identified: (a) complexity of conceptualization of members and interventions; (b) fostering openness and engagement; and (c) focusing on process.     

When what you know is not enough: expertise and gender dynamics in task groups

This study investigates how the contribution, identification, and consideration of expertise within groups are affected by gender differences. The authors examined the effects of member expertise and gender on others' perceptions of expertise, actual and own perceptions of influence, and group performance on a decision-making task. The authors' findings are consistent with social role theory and expectation states theory. Women were less influential when they possessed expertise, and having expertise decreased how expert others perceived them to be. Conversely, having expertise was relatively positive for men. These differences were reflected in group performance, as groups with a female expert underperformed groups with a male expert. Thus, contrary to common expectations, possessing expertise did not ameliorate the gender effects often seen in workgroups. The findings are discussed in light of their implications for organizational workgroups in which contribution of expertise is critical to group performance.     

职业胜任力在工作要求-资源模型中的调节和中介作用

采用JD-R模型探讨了职业胜任力在工作要求-资源模型中的作用。结果表明:(1)职业胜任力弱化了工作要求和情感衰竭之间的正向关系;(2)职业胜任力正向影响工作投入;(3)职业胜任力在工作资源与工作投入之间起中介作用。本研究启示可通过提升员工的职业胜任力,促进员工的工作投入并缓解职业倦怠。     

智力运动专家领域内知觉与记忆的加工特点及其机制

智力运动是以开发智力为目的且涉及到较多认知活动的竞技运动。研究表明, 长期的智力运动经验会影响专家在领域内任务中知觉及记忆的行为表现及其大脑活动。智力运动经验使专家知觉广度增大的同时, 促进专家对棋子关系进行整体性知觉加工, 且这一过程与颞顶联合区、缘上回、压后皮质、侧副沟、梭状回等区域有关; 在长时记忆中存储的具体(空间位置)及抽象信息(知识、策略、棋子关系等)是专家记忆优势发生的基础, 该过程与内侧颞叶、额叶和顶叶有关。未来研究可以从智力运动类型、创新实验范式, 结合测量设备及认知特点, 深入探讨智力运动专家整体知觉优势及记忆优势的神经机制, 为人工智能和技能训练等提供理论依据。     

Depth Psychology and Symbolic Anthropology: Toward a Depth Sociology of Psychocultural Interaction

Research on the moral faculty indicates that morality emerges naturally over the course of normal human development, similar to other competencies such as face perception, language, numerical reasoning, and some motor skills (running, jumping, etc.). One implication of this is that there should be a roughly normal distribution of moral skills. Thus, while most people develop competent moral skills, a few fail to develop these skills and a few develop them to an “expert” level. The skill development literature indicates that deliberate practice is necessary for the acquisition of expertise. Religious participation appears to provide the basic elements of deliberate “moral practice.” Empirical evidence is reviewed supporting the notion that religion provides the means and opportunity for the acquisition of moral expertise. A program of research into moral expertise is proposed with testable hypotheses presented.     

专家医生的知识结构及诊断推理方式

医学专长研究中“中间者效应”的发现,引发了研究者对专家医生知识结构的探讨。在“知识打包”的基础上,医生的临床知识以“疾病脚本”的方式组织起来。随着临床经验的增加,专家医生积累了丰富的疾病脚本。在临床诊断中,他们无需对病人所有的体征和症状进行仔细地和系统地分析,而是通过非分析性的推理方式——“模式识别”或“样例识别”便可自动激活与之匹配的疾病脚本,据此对病人做出迅速而准确的诊断。医学专长的本质就在于专家医生以“疾病脚本”的方式组织起来的知识结构。“适应性专长”代表了未来医学专长研究的新方向