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33 - Expertise in History

from PART V.C - GAMES AND OTHER TYPES OF EXPERTISE

By
James F. Voss  and
Jennifer Wiley
Edited by
K. Anders Ericsson ,
Neil Charness ,
Paul J. Feltovich  and
Robert R. Hoffman
James F. Voss
Affiliation:
Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh
Jennifer Wiley
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois
K. Anders Ericsson
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Neil Charness
Affiliation:
Florida State University
Paul J. Feltovich
Affiliation:
University of West Florida
Robert R. Hoffman
Affiliation:
University of West Florida
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Summary

Overviews of Expertise and of History

Expertise

Expertise, studied in a variety of domains, has referred to highly skilled performance in an activity such as violin playing or playing chess. Expertise has referred also to a person's knowledge and/or ability to perform representational tasks of a particular domain. The term also may be based on a reputation established by publications and/or lectures, or on a “certification” such as a PhD. In the present context, an expert in history is assumed to have a general and a specialized knowledge of history as well as facility in the skills of historical research and writing.

Although the study of expertise began in the late nineteenth century, the primary impetus occurred in the late twentieth century with the work on chess by de Groot (1965) and Chase and Simon (1973a, 1973b). This research, comparing expert, middle-range, and novice performance, demonstrated the importance of recognizing functionally related “chunks” of chess pieces. Similarly, physics experts were superior to novices in their conceptual understanding of physics problems, which in turn led to their better problem solving (Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981; Larkin, McDermott, Simon, & Simon, 1980).

The nature of expertise in any domain involves an interaction of a person's knowledge (both domain-specific and general) and skills, and the characteristics of the domain that constrain performance. Some domains, because of their conceptual evolution, permit the use of mathematics, formal logic, or well-controlled experimentation.

Type
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The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance , pp. 569 - 584
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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