Guest Lecture by Mark Williams, professor and chair
Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Recreation
University of Utah

Many factors contribute to the development of expertise. The contribution of hereditary characteristics and the importance of practice, instruction, and the mentorship of significant others such as parents and coaches are often debated.

A common or lay opinion is that elite performers are born rather than made, creating the perception that less ‘gifted’ individuals may continually strive to reach excellence without making the necessary gains needed to become experts in the domain. However, recent research in the sport and cognitive sciences has indicated that individuals achieve excellence through many hours of deliberate, purposeful practice with the specific intention of improving performance.

Typically, for example, elite athletes have to devote in excess of 10,000 hours of practice to achieve excellence, regardless of sport. This commitment and continual engagement in practice is the most important determining factor on the path to excellence. Hereditary factors may also be important in helping individuals develop the necessary ‘rage to master’ (i.e., the commitment and motivation to persist in practice over many years).

The proposal is that expertise develops as a result of adaptations to the unique environmental constraints imposed during practice and performance. In this presentation, an attempt is made to highlight the practice history profiles of elite performers, with a particular focus, and to illustrate through reference to recent empirical research the type of psychological adaptations that arise as a result of extended involvement in practice.

A particular focus will be on the development of perceptual-cognitive skills such as anticipation and decision making in team games and racket sports. Practical implications for talent selection and development are highlighted, with attempts to illustrate the nature and type of practice activities most likely to help nurture future generations of experts.

SPEAKER BIO

A. Mark Williams is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Recreation and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Utah. His research interests focus on the neural and psychological mechanisms underpinning the acquisition and development of skill. He has published  almost  200 articles in peer-reviewed outlets in numerous fields including exercise and sports science (e.g., Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Sports Medicine), experimental psychology (e.g., Acta Psychologica, British Journal of Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Visual Cognition, Journal of Experimental Psychology), neuroscience (Neuroscience Letters, Human Brain Mapping, Neuroimaging, Neuropsychologica) and medicine (The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Medical Education). He has written 16 books, almost 80 book chapters, 60 professional articles, 100 journal abstracts, and he has delivered almost 200 keynote and invited lectures in over 30 countries. His H index on Google Scholar is 76, with an i10 of 220 and almost 23,000 citations. He has 60 papers cited over 100 times and 27 papers more than 200 times.

He is Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Sports Science and Executive Editor for the journal Human Movement Science. He sits on the editorial boards of the Scandinavian Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, Frontiers of Cognition, and Frontiers in Psychology: Performance Science and has acted as a Guest Editor for special issues of Journal of Sport Sciences, Journal of Motor Behavior, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

He has mentored nine Post-Doctoral Research Fellows and supervised over 40 doctoral students. He has acted as a reviewer for more than 50 journals in the exercise and sports sciences, experimental psychology, education and cognitive/behavioral neurosciences and 15 funding agencies in North America, Europe, and Asia.

He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS), National Academy of Kinesiology, British Association of Sport and Exercise Science, and European College of Sports Sciences. He is a Chartered Psychologist and Scientist. He has been a Visiting Professor at several prestigious institutions including Florida State University, University of Florida, University of Calgary, University of British Columbia, University of the Mediterranean, University of Salzburg, and KU Leuven.

He has received more than $6 million USD in external funding from research councils in Australia (Australian Research Council - ARC) and the UK (Economic and Social Research Council; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council - BBSRC; British Academy, Royal Society), industry partners, such as Nike and Umbro, as well as governing bodies (The FA, FIFA, UEFA, UK Sport) and professional sports teams (Liverpool, Everton, West Ham).