The role of deliberate practice in expert performance: revisiting Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer
Brooke Macnamara and a colleague replicated the 1993 violin study with 39 students in three groups, using a double-blind procedure and analyses suited to the design. Accumulated practice alone distinguished the less accomplished group from the other two, but the best group did not differ from the good group, and the best group reported less current weekly practice. Practice explained a substantial share of the variance in performance, much smaller than in the original study. Teacher-designed practice was rated less relevant than practice alone and explained no more of the variance. The authors list a small sample, retrospective estimates that run high and possible differences in expertise from the original sample as limits.
Brooke Macnamara and a colleague replicated the 1993 violin study with 39 students in three groups, using a double-blind procedure and analyses suited to the design. Accumulated practice alone distinguished the less accomplished group from the other two, but the best group did not differ from the good group, and the best group reported less current weekly practice. Practice explained a substantial share of the variance in performance, much smaller than in the original study. Teacher-designed practice was rated less relevant than practice alone and explained no more of the variance. The authors list a small sample, retrospective estimates that run high and possible differences in expertise from the original sample as limits.
Written from the full text read 2026-10-26 on PubMed Central.
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(1993).' Royal Society Open Science, 6(8), 190327. doi:10.1098/rsos.190327