Expert Performance in Sports

Janet Starkes, PhD, is a professor and chair of the department of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. She earned her postdoctorate in clinical neuropsychology at Mt. Sinai Hospital, and she has been doing research in expert performance since 1975. Dr. Starkes is an international fellow of the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education and has served as president of the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology (1994), president of the North American Society for Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity (1997), and president of the Canadian Council of University Physical Education and Kinesiology Administrators (1999). Dr. Starkes has been invited to speak about sport expertise in 10 different countries, and she was keynote speaker on the topic at the World Congress of Sport Psychology in 2001. This is her second edited book in expert performance. In her spare time, she enjoys cottaging, renovating historic buildings, and reading. K. Anders Ericsson, PhD, Conradi Eminent Scholar and professor of psychology at Florida State University, has greatly influenced the current direction of expertise research. In 1976 he received his PhD in psychology from the University of Stockholm in Sweden, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie-Mellon University. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Ericsson delivered the 2001 Distinguished Scholar Lecture Series at the University of Alberta in Canada. Currently he studies the cognitive structure of expert performance in domains such as music, chess, and sport and how expert performers acquire their superior performance by extended deliberate practice. He coedited Toward a General Theory of Expertise and edited The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Art and Sciences, Sports and Games.

Part I. Introduction Chapter 1. The Magic and the Science of Sport Expertise: Introduction to Sport Expertise Research and This Volume Janet L. Starkes Part II. Where Are We and How Did We Get There? Chapter 2. Expert Performance in Sport: Current Perspectives and Critical Issues Christopher M. Janelle and Charles H. Hillman Chapter 3. Development of Elite Performance and Deliberate Practice: An Update From the Perspective of the Expert Performance Approach K. Anders Ericsson Part III. Developing and Retaining Sport Expertise Chapter 4. From Play to Practice: A Developmental Framework for the Acquisition of Expertise in Team Sport Jean Ct, Joseph Baker, and Bruce Abernethy Chapter 5. A Search for Deliberate Practice: An Examination of the Practice Environments in Figure Skating and Volleyball Janice M. Deakin and Stephen Cobley Chapter 6. Tactics, the Neglected Attribute of Expertise: Problem Representations and Performance Skills in Tennis Sue L. McPherson and Michael W. Kernodle Chapter 7. Expertise in Sport Judges and Referees: Circumventing Information Processing Limitations Diane Ste-Marie Chapter 8. Expert Athletes: An Integrated Approach to Decision Making Gershon Tenenbaum Chapter 9. Perceptual Expertise: Development in Sport A. Mark Williams and Paul Ward Chapter 10. Retaining Expertise: What Does it Take For Older Expert Athletes to Continue to Excel? Janet L. Starkes, Patricia L. Weir, and Bradley W. Young Part IV. Novel Ways of Examining the Characteristics of Expertise and Related Theories Chapter 11. Development of Expertise: The Role of Coaching, Families, and Cultural Contexts John H. Salmela and Luiz Carlos Moraes Chapter 12. Memory and Expertise: What Do Experienced Athletes Remember? Sian L. Beilock, Sarah A. Wierenga, and Thomas H. Carr Chapter 13. Expert Performance in Sport: Views From the Joint Perspectives of Ecological Psychology and Dynamical Systems Theory Peter Beek, D. Jacobs, A. Daffertshofer, and R. Huys Part V. The Great Debate: Is a General Theory of Expert Performance Achievable? Chapter 14. Constraints and Issues in the Development of a General Theory of Expert Perceptual-Motor Performance: A Critique of the Deliberate Practice Framework Bruce Abernethy, Damian Farrow, and Jason Berry Chapter 15. How the Expert Performance Approach Differs From Traditional Approaches to Expertise in Sports: In Search of a Shared Theoretical Framework for Studying Expert Performance K. Anders Ericsson