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.
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(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).