Expert lecture 2014, Pirkko Hyvönen

EXPERT –
theoretical and
Pirkko Hyvönen, pirkko.hyvonen@oulu.fi
Adjunct Professor
LET, University of Oulu
empirical
background

AFTER THIS LECTURE
Explain, why is expertise and expert
performance important to learn in
higher education.
Describe different levels of expertise
and differences between routine and
adaptive expert.
Reflect, what kind of expertise is
needed in work life today.
Understand, that learning expertise
can be designed.
Pirkko Hyvönen, pirkko.hyvonen@oulu.fi
Tutkijatohtori
KTK/ LET, Oulun yliopisto

BACKGROUND
Normal learning can reach
satisfying basic level. Then, it is
possible to free mental
resources in order to use them
for higher level activities (in
knowledge construction, skills
and self-regulation) (Bereiter & Scardamalia,
1993)
 Universities are expected to educate
experts, who are competent to excel in
changing and complex circumstances in
work life (Hyvönen, Impiö, Järvelä,
2010).
 LET master’s program aims to educate
experts in learning and educational
technology.
 The students will be competent to
work in schools and work places and
use their expertise in adapting to
changing situations, solving problems,
creating social innovations and
integrating technologies in practices.
 Education is based on LET research and
it provides a strong support for
learning.
 Education is also one of the research
contexts.

STEREOTYPES related to
EXPERTISE
Gender
Age
Education
Objective truth truth
Memory
Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993
Expertise is more than general
intelligence: ”Capasity to perform consistently
at a superior level” (Weisberg, 2006)

DEFINITIONS IN DICTIONARIES
FROM 1968-2011
1968: One who is very skillful and
well-informed in some special field
(Webster)
– specialist with a long experience
2005: Characteristics , skills and
knowledge that distinguishes experts
from novices and less experienced
people (Wikipedia)
2011: person, who in certain domain
can recognise problems and solve
them efficiently. Expertise includes
knowledge, experiences and skills for
expressing. (Wikipedia)

DOMAIN-SPECIFIC EXPERTISE
- Informal and formal domains
Salomon (1997). Wine expertise
Norman et al. (2006). Medicine and
surgery
Durco & Dattel (2006). Transportation
Sonentag et al. (2006). Software design
Kellogg (2006). Professional writing
Ross et al. (2006). Decision making
Lehman & Gruber (2006). Music
Hodges et al. (2006). Sports
Butterworth (2006). Mathematics
Cobet & Charness (2006). Chess
Voss & Wiley (2006). History
Brennenkmeyer & Spillane (2008).
Problem-solving

FROM NOVICE TO EXPERT
Five levels of development
(Dreyfus, 1980)
Novice ”Instead of seeing
-
patient care as bits of
unrelated information
and series of tasks, the
expert is able to
integrate various
aspects of patient care
into a meaningful
whole.”
(Dracup, Bryan-Brown, & Einstein, 2004,
p. 449)
Advanced beginner
Competent
Proficient
Expert

FROM NOVICE TO EXPERT
Proficiency scale (Chi, 2006, adapted from Hoffman, 1998)
Novice New; some minimal exposure in the domain
Initiate, Novice who has begun introductory instruction
Apprentice, Is learning beyond introductory level – living with or assisting
someone
Journeyma
n
Experienced, reliable and independent worker (under orders)
Level of competence; motivated but may remain at this level
Expert Brilliant journeyman, highly regarded by peers; can deal
effectively with certain types of rare or tough cases; has
special skills or knowledge derived from extensive experience
with subdomains
Master Expert who has qualified to teach those at a lower level; one
of a elite group of experts, whose judgements set regulations,
standards and ideals; regarded as ”the” expert / ”real” expert

pirkko.hyvonen@oulu.fi
Ponder your path
towards expertise:
analyze your levels.

Expertise is domain-specific. Is a bird expert in flying?
pirkko.hyvonen@oulu.fi

EXPERTS may FALL SHORT (Chi, 2006)
DOMAIN-LIMITED
- Have not necessarily
knowledge about other
domains
OVERTLY CONFIDENT
- eg. in music and physics
GLOSSING OVER
- Sometimes they overlook
details
CONTEXT-DEPENDENT WITHIN
A DOMAIN
- Sometimes they rely too much
for contextual cues
INFLEXIBLE
INACCURATE PREDICTION, JUDGMENT AND ADVICE
- Cannot always take the perspectives of novices
BIAS AND FUNCTIONAL FIXEDNESS
- Analyse problems in other domain through the
priciples of their own domain

TYPES OF EXPERTISE
Bransford, 2001; Bransford et al., 2000; Brophy, Hodge, & Bransford, 2004; Crawford, 2007; Hatano & Inagagi, 1986
Which kind of expertise is
valued and aimed; and how
to design learning
processes, evaluations,
learning outcomes and
instructions.
EXPERTS and EXPERIENCED
NON-EXPERTS (Bereiter &
Scardamalia, 1993)
Career may conform
merely to the routines,
not advancing expertise
and problem-solving.
EXPERTS and NOVICES
ROUTINE EXPERTS
Everyday skills, routines, are developed
in familiar environments and in familiar
tasks. Routine experts can develop
their accuracy and fluency.
ADAPTIVE EXPERTS
Set of cognitive, meta-cognitive, social,
and emotional strategies, where
individuals abandon ‘routine’ problem-solving
strategies.
Adaptive experts are more flexible,
inventive, spontaneous, encouraging
and creative. They deal with novel,
unexpected situations and problems,
and build knowledge at the same time.
They increase their core competencies
plus and go beyond their comfort zone!

ROUTINE EXPERTS:
Acting and dealing with problems
 Surface level perceptions
 Does not see hidden messages, does not see
problems
 Weak skills to solve new problems, but can
solve familiar problems.
 See one suitable way to solve problems
 Want to solve the problem quickly, and move
to next tasks.
 Sparce knowledge base -> may think quickly
 Mainly procedural knowledge
 When situation unexpectably changes,
efficiency decreases, because they try to
solve problem by imitating familiar solutions
that are not suitable for the situation.
 Do not learn in problem-solving
Routine experts
are competent to
solve problems
that are familiar
and expected.
Name some
concrete situations
or problem-solving
processes in any
domain, here
routine expertise is
useful.

ADAPTIVE EXPERTS
Holoyok: truly expert,
Bransford: competencies plus
 Make perceptions of problem and its context;
dissect various different perspectives
 See a problem as an opportunity to learn, learn in
problem-solving and produce new knowledge
same time
 Classify, label, analyse problems
 Perceive patterns and differencies
 Start to organise problem around central
concepts or idea
 Ponder forward, theoretical reasoning
 Dence knowledge base  thinking may take time
 Think and identify novel solutions and possibilities
 Strong conceptual understanding
 Flexible in using knowledge
 Evidence-based argumentation
Adaptive experts
are competent to
solve problems
that are novel and
unexpected
Name some
concrete situations
or problem-solving
processes inin any
domain, where
adaptive expertise
is useful.

LEARNING EXPERTISE IS A PATH OR
JOURNEY OF COMPETENCE BUILDING
including also regressions (Alexander, 2003; Bereiter
& Scardamalia, 1986; Lajoie, 2003)
Learning expertise comprices of three overlapping
dimensions:
 knowledge construction (Bransford et al,
2000; Sawyer, 2006)
 expert-like performance (eg., Bereiter &
Scardamalia, 1993; Tynjälä, 2007)
 self-regulation (Boekaerts, Pintrich &
Zeidner, 2000; Lin, Schwarz & Hatano, 2005)
 It is a transitional learning process where goals are
set, monitored, reflected and scaffolded (Lajoie,
2003)

EXPERTS can EXCELL (Chi, 2006)
GENERATING THE BEST
- Find the best solution
DETECTION and
RECOGNITION
- Detect and perceive
features that novices
cannot
QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
-Analyse problems,
develope problem
representations
MONITORING & REFLECTING
- Have good self-monitoring
and predicting skills
STRATEGIES
- Use the best and effective
strategies in a given situation
OPPORTUNISTIC
- Can use whatever sources
of information that are
available
COGNITIVE EFFORT
Can retrieve relevant domain
knowledge

EXPERTS may FALL SHORT (Chi, 2006)
DOMAIN-LIMITED
- Have not necessarily
knowledge about other
domains
OVERTLY CONFIDENT
- eg. in music and physics
GLOSSING OVER
- Sometimes they overlook
details
CONTEXT-DEPENDENT WITHIN
A DOMAIN
- Sometimes they rely too much
for contextual cues
INFLEXIBLE
INACCURATE PREDICTION,
JUDGMENT AND ADVICE
- Cannot always take the
perspectives of novices
BIAS AND FUNCTIONAL
FIXEDNESS
- Analyse problems in other
domain through the
priciples of their own
domain

EXPERTISE IN WORK LIFE
Informants (N=13) are experts in different formal domains
On what ground they are considered experts?
 They are in a leading and demanding position
 Key persons in their field
 Considered as more competent than other people in the field
 Long career and high education
 They consider themselves as experts
 Each of them are experts at least on two domains
”Expertise is easiest to identify when it differs most dramatically from
what ordinary people can do” (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993)
(Hyvönen, Impiö & Järvelä, 2014)
let.oulu.fi / etunimi.sukunimi@oulu.fi

 How experts define expertise?
1) Expertise is future-oriented having
a developmental and advancing
perspective. They are expected to
innovate new or re-new existing
practice, processes and products.
2) Developmental perspective and
performance is conjugated with need
of constant learning and
understanding things and processes
(Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993).
- Factual, procedural and self-regulative
knowledge
- Multifaceted domains
20

3) Expertise is increasingly a social and collaborative phenomenon,
which lay both opportunities and challenges for the path of expertise.
- Opportunity: social view, collaboration and even technologies in
collaboration can enhance construction of shared expertise
- Challenge: collaboration is effective way of learning, but does not
happen easily
- Social skills, communication, use of technologies
- Learning from and with other people
- Understanding other people: without it domain-specific
expertise cannot be exploited
21

4) Experts
 Have a strong self-confidence, and trust on their team to develop,
create and construct new solutions
 Knows how to act rationally in certain situations
 Have sensibility to perceive situations
 Are diligent, curious, flexible, self-initiative, and modest
 Expert’s work is not automatic nor easy.
(Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993; Hyvönen, Impiö & Järvelä, 2010; Tsui,
2009)
22

 What are the problems like?
Situations are always complex and difficult, and you can never be fully
prepared for them. Problems in working life involves more than running
through ‘routines’.
1) Understand people and interacting with them. Problems with people are
related to communication, social interaction, shared understanding and
emotional constrains, such as envy and hostile atmospheres, which tend to
prevent developing innovations and also expertise.
2) Inadequate technical tools. Although many ICT tools are in use, there are still
lack of tools and software that solve very compound problems.
3) Decision-making problems (Johnson, 1988; Jonassen, 2007): experts at times
have to make decisions without the necessary information.
4) Sharing tacit knowledge
5) Dealing with time, motivation, prioritization and overlapping tasks
23

 How do the experts perform ‘routine’ and ‘adaptive’ expertise in their
work?
“There is no such thing as routines in my work.”
1) Degree of routines declines, when complexity of work and experience of
individual increases: “The more I have experience in this work, the less there
are routine cases.”
2) Creativity, insight and playfulness (see, Brophy et al., 2004; Hyvönen, 2008;
Weisberg, 2006) seems to play a role in adaptive expertise.
3) To some extend adaptive experts can adjust the complexity
24

 How useful education has been for
their current position?
1) Overall, formal education has not
satisfactorily provided resources for their
current work; instead, it has provided
basic general knowledge. Education is
lacking of important areas that are
needed in work life, such as
communication, negotiation and
presentation, even writing and discussing
skills were not adequately provided.
2) Only exception was education in
engineering, that has provided skills in
problem-solving and foreign languages,
which are essential in expert work.
25

HOW TO LEARN TO BE AN
ADAPTIVE EXPERT?
Bransford, 2001; Brophy, Hodge, & Bransford, 2004; Crawford, 2007; Hatano & Inagagi, 1986
Help students to understand their own processes of knowing and
problem-solving!

Normal learning does not provide expertise, but can lead
to ”good enough” tai ”satisfying” level.
 Normal learning can reach satisfying basic level. Then it
is possible to free mental resources in order to use them
for higher level activities (in knowledge construction, skills
and self-regulation)
Formal education produces the users of experts, but not
experts! (Geisler, 1994)
Formal education does not nesessarily produce experts,
rather experienced non-experts (Bereiter & Scardamalia,
1993)

Learning expertise is a path or journey of competence
building, including also regressions (Alexander, 2003;
Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1986; Lajoie, 2003)
Learning expertise comprices of three overlapping
dimensions:
 knowledge construction (Bransford et al, 2000;
Sawyer, 2006)
 expert-like performance (eg., Bereiter &
Scardamalia, 1993; Tynjälä, 2007)
 self-regulation (Boekaerts, Pintrich & Zeidner,
2000; Lin, Schwarz & Hatano, 2005)
 It is a transitional learning process where goals are set,
monitored, reflected and scaffolded (Lajoie, 2003)

How to learn to be an adaptive expert?
Structured collaborative problem-solving method (Hyvönen &
Impiö)
1. To establish the basis for collaborative problem solving process:
to get to know each others, to acknowledge mental resourses and to
construct common understanding of the task and underlying theories
(activating prior knowledge)
To design virtual and face-to-face phases and technological tools to be
used.
2. To understand the context of the problem, and the problem and to
define learning goals
 Problems are authentic cases from work life; they are new and ill-structured,
where multiple solutions are possible
 The core of a problem should be analysed and defined
 Reseach-based approach
3. To find possible solutions by constructing new knowledge based on the
learning sciences, but adapted to authentic work life.
4. To choose the solution and work (play) with it until the problem will be
solved

FEATURES OF THE COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING
METHOD
1. Problems are not as in work life, but real assignment from work
life..
2. Collaboration is enhanced all way long.
3. Working takes place as expert teams by students, work life persons
and other invited experts.
4. Evaluation, monitoring, reflection and planning are central in the
process.
5. Playfulness and creativity are encouraged to free cognitive
resources
6. Autonomy in designing blended model to work and use technologies
meaningfully (AC, Skype, GoogleDocs, mind maps etc.)
 For rich interaction
 For making thinking visible and audible
 For knowledge construction
7. Academic, research-based approach and understanding
8. The outcomes as social innovations, such as novel models to carry
on

Examples of open problems by Elektrobit (EB) 2010
1. Open Source & Developer Communities
Various developer communities are now important in
software designing. Many software adaptations are based
on open source platform (eg. Linux, Symbian, Qt, Android,
MeeGo), while various informal communities work as
developers. One temporal question is how open source
culture and joining in developer communities can be
promoted?
2. Motivation and managers
Managers face questions and situations that are linked to
motivation and flow of work. In order to help managers to
coach team members they need to understand, what
motivation means and what affect to motivation. How to
increase understanding among coaching managers? How
manager could help experts to maintain their motivation
through work career?
Heiss, Janice J. (2007)

Examples of results for problems by Elektrobit (EB) 2010
Posters and booklets

References
Alexander, P. A. (2003). The development of expertise: The journey from acclimation to proficiency.
Educational Researcher, 32(8): 10–14.
Bereiter, C. & Scardamalia, M. (1993). Surpassing ourselves. An inquiry into the nature and
implications of expertise. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company.
Bransford, J. (2001). Thought on adaptive expertise. Retrieved June 15, 2008, from
http://www.vanth.org/docs/AdaptiveExpertise.pdf.
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.) (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, and
school. Washington: National Academy Press.
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=9853
Brenninkmeyer, L. D. & Spillane, J. P. (2008). Problem-solving processes of experts and typical school
principals: A quantitative look. School Leadership & Management, 28(5), 435–468.
Brophy, S., Hodge, L., & Bransford, J. (2004). Work in progress – Adaptive expertise: Beyond apply
academic knowledge. Frontiers in Education 3 (FIE): S1B/28-
S1B/30, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1408679.
Chi, M. T. H. (2006). Two approaches to the study of experts’ characteristics. In K. A. Ericsson, N.
Charness, P. J. Feltovich & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert
Performance (pp. 21–30). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chi, M.T.H., Glaser, R., & Rees, E. (1982). Expertise in problem-solving. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.),
Advances in the psychology of human intelligence (pp. 7–75).
Chi, M. T. H. & Koeske, R. D. (1983). Network representation of a child’s dinosaur knowledge.
Developmental Psychology, 19(1): 29–39.
Crawford, V, M, (2007), Adaptive expertise as knowledge building in science teacher’s problem solving.
Paper accepted for the proceedings of the European Cognitive Science Conference. Delphi, Greece.
Ericsson, K. A. (2006). An introduction to Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance: Its
development, organization, and content. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich & R. R.
Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 3–19). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Hatano, G. & Inagagi, K. (1986). Two courses of expertise. In H. Stevenson, H. Azuma & K. Hakuta
(Eds.), Child development and education in Japan (pp. 262–272). New York (N.Y.): Freeman.
Hatano, G. & Oura, Y. (2003). Commentary: Reconceptualizing school learning using
insight from expertise research. Educational Researcher, 32(8): 26–29.
Hmelo-Silver, C., Marathe, S. & Liu, L. (2007). Fish swim, rocks sit, and lungs breathe: Expert-novice
understanding of complex systems. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 16(3), 307 – 331.
Holoyoak, 1991
Johnsson, E. J. (1988). Expertise and decision under uncertainty: Performance and process. In T. H.
Michele, H. Chi, R. Glaser & M. T. Farr (Eds.), The nature of expertise (pp. 209–228). Hillsdale (N.J.):
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Jonassen, D. H. (2007). What makes scientific problems difficult? In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Learning to
solve complex scientific problems (pp. 3–23).
Lajoie, S. P. (2003). Transitions and trajectories for studies of expertise. Educational Researcher, 32(8):
21–25.
Lin, X., Schwartz, D.L., & Bransford, J. (2007). Intercultural adaptive expertise: Explicit and implicit
lessons from Dr. Hatano. Human Development, 50, 65–72.
Posner, M. J. (1988). Introduction: What is it to be an expert? In M.T.H. Chi, R. Glaser, & M.J.F. Farr
(Eds.), The nature of expertise (pp. xxix–1). Hillsdale (N.J.): Lawrence Erlbaum .
Tsui, A.B.M. (2009). Distinctive qualities of expert teachers. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and
Practice, 15(4), 421–439.
Weisberg, R. W. (2006). Modes of expertise in creative thinking: Evidence from case studies. In K. A.
Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise
and expert performance (Eds.), (pp. 761-787). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zimmerman, B. J. (2006). Development of adaptation of expertise: The role of self-regulatory processes
and beliefs. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge
handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 705–722). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Yates and Tschirhart (2007).

Expert lecture 2014, Pirkko Hyvönen

More Related Content

Similar to Expert lecture 2014, Pirkko Hyvönen

More from Learning and Educational Technology Research Unit

Recently uploaded

Expert lecture 2014, Pirkko Hyvönen

Editor's Notes