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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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

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Contact information

• Dr. Tongji Li litj_at_tongji.edu.cn
• Prof. Dr. Remy Rikers rikers_at_fsw.eur.nl