The role of deliberate practice in Chinese vocational teaching

1. The role of deliberate practice in Chinese vocational teaching Dr. Tongji Li Institute of Vocational and Technical Education, Tongji University, Shanghai & Prof. Dr. Remy Rikers Department of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2. The outline of the presentation • About deliberate practice • About deliberate practice in teaching • The limitations in previous research • About deliberate practice in Chinese vocational teaching

3. The background of deliberate practice • In expertise research, researchers try to know what are the differences between expert and novice performance, what are the mechanisms that lead to the difference between expert and novice performance, and how expertise is acquired. • Plenty of studies have been conducted to answer the above questions. The area includes music, sports, chess, medicine, and other professional areas. • Ericsson et al. (1993) proposed deliberate practice theory to explain the acquisition of expertise. • He reputed the views that the exceptional performance is the result of gene (such as Galton,1869) or other innate factors and argued that expert performance is the result of individuals’ prolonged efforts to improve performance, that is, engagement in effortful activities (deliberate practice) designed to optimize improvement can explain the acquisition of expertise.

4. The difference between automatic and expert performance • Ericsson (2006) argued that the acquisition of everyday skills follow the rule of theories of skill acquisition (Fitts & Posner, 1967). According to Fitts and Posner, when performers become automotive in skill, they need not control the execution of those skills, and can not modify and adjust their performance. However, expert performers will overcome the plateau stage by developing increasingly complex mental representations to attain higher levels of control of their performance. • He further proposed that experience and practice is useful to attain automatic performance, while only deliberate practice can lead to expert performance.

5. The characteristics of deliberate practice • Designed for consciously improving performance • Task difficulty falls in the zone of proximal development, not repeating on the previous level • The task requires conscious effort, concentration and self regulation • Low entertainment, no immediate external rewards, and need high motivation for perseverance • Feedback and adjustment in time • High requirement in physical and mental resources makes the time performers engage in the activities limited, or it will lead to failure or burnout or even physical hurt.

6. Deliberate practice in different areas • Chess: analyzing published games between the very best chess players. • Violin and piano: practice alone • Sports: individual sports (practice alone); team sports (team practice and accumulated practice); some physically effortful practice do not require high level of concentration; deliberate practice in sports can be enjoyable. • Assurance agent: current time spent on deliberate practice; mental simulations in order to improve their competence, e.g., imagining a difficult situation with a client and mentally explored various behavior possibilities; asking for feedback in order to improve their competence.

7. Deliberate practice in teaching • Dunn and Shriner (1999), elemental school teachers: evaluating students’ performance and planning for teaching. • Chinese researchers (Shi, Hao, Liang, & Li, 2009), senior high school mathematics teachers: preparing the lesson, accumulating exercise items that are used to give students more practices, discussing with colleagues.

8. Limitations in previous research • the microstructure of deliberate practice activities • Most of previous research is about relevant relationship between time engaged in deliberate practice and performance, less is about causal relationship which need to be tested with experiments • Some variables that influence deliberate practice in teaching should be further examined, such as teachers in schools of different levels and types, subjects, cultural backgrounds. • The factors that influence teachers engage in the deliberate activities should be investigated.

9. Chinese vocational teaching • Chinese vocational teaching is a very challenging profession for several reasons, first, the students are lowly motivated to learn; second, vocational teaching requires all kinds of teacher knowledge, such as pedagogical-technique knowledge, practical knowledge related to professional areas, theoretical subjective knowledge, and general pedagogical knowledge; third, Chinese vocational teaching is reformed towards modern constructivist teaching instead of traditional teaching. Action learning, task based teaching, and other kinds of new teaching models are being advocated. Teachers have to change their conceptions of and approaches to teaching, which encourage them to improve their teaching continuously.

10. Some research questions in deliberate practice in Chinese vocational teaching • What is deliberate practice in Chinese vocational teaching? • What is the microstructure of deliberate practice in Chinese vocational teaching? • How to test the effect of deliberate practice in Chinese vocational teaching • Which factors influence Chinese vocational teachers engage in the deliberate practice activities?

11. Thanks for your attention • Please give me more critical feedback

12. Contact information • Dr. Tongji Li: litj@tongji.edu.cn • Prof. Dr. Remy Rikers: rikers@fsw.eur.nl