Deliberate Practice and Performance in Music, Games, Sports, Education, and Professions: A Meta-Analysis
Brooke N. Macnamara, David Z. Hambrick, Frederick L. Oswald
Psychological Science · 2014 · Volume 25 · Issue 8
Abstract
More than 20 years ago, researchers proposed that individual differences in performance in such domains as music, sports, and games largely reflect individual differences in amount of deliberate practice , which was defined as engagement in structured activities created specifically to improve performance in a domain. This view is a frequent topic of popular-science writing—but is it supported by empirical evidence? To answer this question, we conducted a meta-analysis covering all major domains in which deliberate practice has been investigated. We found that deliberate practice explained 26% of the variance in performance for games, 21% for music, 18% for sports, 4% for education, and less than 1% for professions. We conclude that deliberate practice is important, but not as important as has been argued.
Keywords
deliberate practice, talent development, meta-analysis, human performance, skill acquisition, expertise, open data
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