You can practice something for 10,000 hours and still be a bit crap at it

[noblegiraffe]

Interesting research challenging the '10,000 hours' claim that hard work is sufficient to be great at something.

digest.bps.org.uk/2014/06/30/exploding-the-10000-hours-myth-its-no-guarantee-for-greatness/

The hours practised by grandmasters in a chess study went from 832 to over 24,000 and there were players at intermediate level who had practised for longer than the average grandmaster.

I think people already knew this really, but the whole 'growth mindset' fad of recent years has been promoting the idea that anyone can be great at anything. Obviously if you work hard at something, you can get better at it, but there are also other factors at play.

What hasn’t been replicated?

Beaujangles Carol Dweck's research into what she calls 'growth mindset' (not what many schools have decided is growth mindset but is really simply trying hard and learning from mistakes) hasn't been replicated.

"Bates told BuzzFeed News that he has been trying to replicate Dweck’s findings in that key mindset study for several years. “We’re running a third study in China now,” he said. “With 200 12-year-olds. And the results are just null.

“People with a growth mindset don’t cope any better with failure. If we give them the mindset intervention, it doesn’t make them behave better. Kids with the growth mindset aren’t getting better grades, either before or after our intervention study.”"

www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/what-is-your-mindset?utm_term=.hsv2M48lZa#.ceeXmK2B9D

Dweck's defence for the lack of replication is that her work was very carefully done in particular conditions which, if true, makes it completely useless in the real world.

They hadn't even been riding bikes for more than 2-3 yrs, never mind squeezed 10,000 hours in.

I don’t think the 10,000 hour thing is supposed to apply to small children.

So many times the "ten thousand hours" don't apply.

Next, someone will be saying that you need a PhD in astrophysics before the 10,000 hour applies!!

I find it really annoying that Gladwell managed to write a book and make $$$ from a fact that 'everyone' knows anyway. He must have been living under a rock not to have noticed that older kids get picked for sports. I teach in the US where parents can choose to hold their child back a year, particularly if they have an autumn birthday. Everyone knows that the sporty kids stay back a year so that they're the oldest in the grade, then they get to play in the 6th grade team although they're the age/build/skill level of a 7th grader. I feel like Gladwell made his reputation out of saying "oh look, grass is green" or something like that.

Rant over!

But yes, I agree that it requires a certain amount of early/innate skill PLUS a lot of practice to get good at something. Again, it doesn't really take a lot of brain power to work that one out.