Supporting the acquisition of expertise: A challenge for research

Abstract

The book starts with a general approach towards expertise research by discussing the importance of individual efforts, innate capabilities, and social influences for developing excellent skills and capabilities. Expertise research focuses on knowledge structures and their development on the way from novice to expert. It is a perspective that clearly emphasises the contribution of learning to expertise development – and it emphasises that quite generally spoken, almost each individual has the opportunity to develop expertise. However, knowledge structures cannot directly be observed. Hence, research on expertise faces certain challenges. A major concern of this book is to work out the interrelation between individual and social contributions to the development of professional expertise. Even if one is interested only in individual or only in social contributions to professional development, the other component must not be neglected. Each perspective is one side of the same coin.