Syntes: The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance (1993)

Källa: https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.100.3.363 (Psychological Review 100(3))

Verified content

• [abstract] Theoretical framework: expert performance is the end result of prolonged deliberate efforts to improve; individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to assessed amounts of deliberate practice; many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent result from intense practice extended for at least 10 years.
• [full text] Study 1: three groups of young violinists at the Music Academy in West Berlin (the best, good, and future music teachers), plus middle-aged professional violinists; diaries and retrospective estimates of practice. Violinists rated practice alone as the most relevant activity for improvement.
• [full text] Estimated practice alone accumulated by age 18: best young violinists 7,410 hours, good violinists 5,301 hours (a reliable difference), music teachers 3,420 hours (reliably fewer than the two best groups).
• [full text] Study 2 compared expert and amateur pianists and related estimated prior practice to current performance.

Limits

• [assessment] Small groups ([full text] each young-violinist group had 10 people, 7 women and 3 men); retrospective practice estimates; group comparisons, not variance explained.

Added 2026-10-16 by the project (broadening, Jonatan approved 2026-10-16). Verified 2026-10-16 by the project against the sources named in each line. [abstract] = from the published abstract; [full text] = read in the full text; [assessment] = the project's own judgement, not a fact from the paper.