| K. Anders Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesche-Romer (1993) suggest that individuals become "experts" in a variety of fields through a form of focused practice, called "deliberate practice" (DP) and dismiss the contribution of general ability in the acquisition of expertise. However, "expertise" in job performance has been studied for over 80 years and most research suggests that the strongest single predictor of expertise in job performance is general ability (g), not practice. This study was the first of its kind to explore the DP construct in the work setting, the relationship between DP and ability on job performance, and the DP construct in a primarily cognitive domain. The participants were 32 computer programmers from five job levels in a large retail organization. Pre-employment Computer Programmer Aptitude Battery (CPAB) scores were used as a measure of general ability and the programmer's retrospective estimates of the total number of hours spent in practice were used as a measure of DP. The participant's retrospective estimates were, on average, 1.4 hr/day more than the amount of practice they recorded over a one week period three months later (N = 8). The overall findings revealed a stronger relationship between general ability and job level (r = .37, .90 CI = +/-0.29) than between DP and job level (r = .22, .90 CI = +/0.30) for the full data set. When ability was regressed on job level, deliberate practice did not add to the regression equation (R change = .08) over and above ability (ability alone, R = .37). However, when one outlier was removed from the deliberate practice data, the correlation between deliberate practice and job level increased to r = .42 (.90 CI = +/-0.23). When this outlier was removed, deliberate practice added significantly (R change = .17) to the regression equation over and above ability (ability alone, R = .34) when the two predictors were regressed on job level in a moderately predictive regression equation (r = .54). These findings reveal a slightly attenuated relationship between deliberate practice and performance than previous studies investigating the same relationship among pianists, violinists, and skaters. A number of theoretical, statistical, and procedural implications for these findings are discussed. |
