I think this needs to be said: if you’re trying to get better at thinking, looking at expert-novice differences (and, specifically the bits of expertise research that studies expert-novice differences) is a really, really good idea.
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I did a tweet recently saying that ‘tft folk’ (thinking: the tool makers) were overly focused on plugins and features but not the cogsci of externalised thinking, and the pushback I got was that cogsci was quite useless to dig into.
But maybe they’re looking at the wrong places?
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Arguably everything I’ve written about NDM/accelerated expertise/the most recent post about expertise in ill-structured domains have all been downstream of expert-novice differences.
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If you were a 14 year old basketball superstar wannabe, would you want to have the mindset of Michael Jordan when he was 14 and in development or his mindset when he was 27 and a superstar?
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False dichotomy!
1. Basketball is a well-structured domain with a history of pedagogical development. Deliberate practice is possible, so understanding expert-novice differences aren’t so important.
2. Mindset is orthogonal to expertise acquisition.
(Well to be precise mindset is important, but you can’t do much with mindset if you don’t also have a way to improve expertise).