Toward functional expertise through formal education: identifying an opportunity for higher education
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Toward functional expertise through formal education: identifying an opportunity for higher education Richard H. Swan1 · Kenneth J. Plummer1 · Richard E. West1
© Association for Educational Communications and Technology 2020
Abstract In this paper, we synthesize research on the nature and development of expertise to propose a developmental model that describes four main areas of expert knowledge: procedural, conditional, and conceptual knowledge, along with knowledge generation. We propose that these types of expert knowledge map onto and promote the development of four types of expert performance: procedural, functional, adaptive, and generative expertise. Further, we propose that expertise develops in terms of a fluency dimension consisting of execution, repertoire, and automaticity. We propose that this model highlights a potential opportunity for educators and instructional designers to target the appropriate level of expertise through teaching specific knowledge types in progression and providing practice and feedback to improve fluency. At a minimum, graduates would possess a degree of functional fluency and be better able to enter the workforce. Being aware of the need, and also knowing how, to conditionalize their own knowledge should also accelerate their continued acquisition of expertise throughout their career. Keywords Expertise · Cognition · Learning theory · Conditional knowledge · Pedagogy Overall, the literature on expertise appears to presume that formal (higher) education does not develop expertise; rather, expertise is gained after formal education from career experience (Ericsson 2014; Renkl and Mandl 1996; Walsh 2007). While many acknowledge that education is important, its role is seen as preparatory (Alexander 2003, 2005). According to Tynjälä et al. (1997), education has “an important role in creating (or inhibiting) the preconditions for expertise” (p. 479, emphasis added). Similarly, Elvira et al. (2017) stated “that the goal of education is... to lay the foundations for the development of expertise” (p. 187).
* Richard E. West [email protected] Richard H. Swan [email protected] Kenneth J. Plummer [email protected] 1
Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
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We agree that authentic experience beyond higher education is essential for fully developing expertise. However, researchers have also indicated that studying expertise should help inform education and instructional design (Bransford et al. 2000; Elvira et al. 2017; Ericsson 2018b; Gobet 2005; Hatano and Oura 2003). One goal of such research would be to strengthen the contribution of education to the development of expertise (see Hoffman 1998). Indeed, constructivist pedagogies were developed in pursuit of this goal (Ericsson 2018b). Likewise, we feel that formal education can have an increased role in developing expertise. Even assuming that education is preparatory, we assert that education can better prepare students to be more functional as they embark on their careers (se
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