Elsevier

Educational Research Review

Volume 12, June 2014, Pages 14-29
Educational Research Review

Review
How experts deal with novel situations: A review of adaptive expertise

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2014.03.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Knowledge representation relates to adaptive expertise.

  • Cognitive and analogical problem solving abilities relates to adaptive expertise.

  • A focus on learning rather than performance is important for adaptive expertise.

  • Research is needed on the measurement of adaptive expertise.

  • Research is needed on the degree of adaptability within adaptive expertise.

Abstract

Adaptive expertise allows individuals to perform at a high level in the face of changing job tasks and work methods, setting it apart from routine expertise. Given the increased need for flexibility in the workplace, adaptive expertise is increasingly important for today’s graduates and professionals. This review investigates which individual and environmental factors distinguish adaptive expertise from routine expertise and thus provides insights into how to facilitate adaptive expertise and its development. Key differences between routine and adaptive expertise are related to knowledge representation, cognitive and analogical problem solving abilities, and past experiences. Learning and working environments, which give individuals the responsibility to develop their own solution strategy and have supportive superiors benefit adaptive expertise. The results of our review also indicate that there is little consensus on the degree of adaptation adaptive expertise provides and the characteristics of a novel situation.

Introduction

Today’s work environments are characterized by increasing complexity due to higher levels of required knowledge and task volatility (Howard, 1995, Molloy and Noe, 2009, Tannenbaum, 2001). It is no longer sufficient to be an expert in one domain, but employees need to be able to combine different specializations (Pink, 2006), adapt to changes in their domain (Smith, Ford, & Kozlowski, 1996), and develop their expertise and become proficient in other domains (van der Heijden, 2002). In short, they must be able to deal effectively with novel situations and problems. Therefore, flexibility at the workplace becomes a critical ingredient for career success (van der Heijden, 2002). While some people quickly overcome changes in work requirements by inventing new procedures and using their expert knowledge in novel ways (Hatano and Inagaki, 1986, Holyoak, 1991), others do not possess this ability and find themselves thrown back performing as a novice. This ability to quickly get accustomed to change has been called adaptive expertise (Hatano & Inagaki, 1986).

Adaptive expertise is generally seen as important, but its characteristics and development are ill understood. Achieving a better understanding of the concept of adaptive expertise is necessary to design learning activities that contribute to its development. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review is to establish what the characteristics of adaptive expertise are and with which training and task characteristics it flourishes. By analyzing the characteristics that distinguish adaptive expertise from routine expertise, it will become possible to deduct what learning activities lead to it.

Hatano and Inagaki (1986) first coined the term adaptive expertise and contrast it with routine expertise. They conceptualize that both types of expertise comprise the same extent of domain knowledge and the ability to perform flawless in familiar situations. However, the difference becomes apparent once confronted with an unfamiliar situation: A situation in which the task, method or desired results are not known in advance (Ellström, 2001). While individuals with routine expertise struggle with the new demands, adaptive expertise allows for easily overcoming the novelty and quickly regaining a high level of performance thanks to a knowledge representation which allows for flexibility (Schwartz, Bransford, & Sears, 2005). In contrast to routine expertise, individuals with adaptive expertise possess the knowledge of why and under which conditions certain methods have to be used or new methods have to be devised.

Various authors studying adaptive expertise have provided numerous descriptions with features that fall apart in three groups. First, adaptive expertise entails all the basic components of routine expertise (e.g., Fisher and Peterson, 2001, Hatano and Oura, 2003, Martin et al., 2007, Mylopoulos and Woods, 2009, Varpio et al., 2009). Second, adaptive expertise is marked by better developed meta-cognitive skills than routine expertise (e.g., Crawford et al., 2005, Martin et al., 2006). Third, adaptive expertise is set apart through abilities such as flexibility, ability to innovate, continuous learning, seeking out challenges, and creativity (e.g., Barnett and Koslowski, 2002, Crawford et al., 2005, Hatano and Oura, 2003, Martin et al., 2006, Martin et al., 2007, Mylopoulos and Scardamalia, 2008, Varpio et al., 2009). These characteristics point to two important facets of adaptive expertise. Firstly, it develops out of routine expertise. This is based on the first characteristic and implies that both forms of expertise are observable through accurate and efficient performance on domain-relevant and familiar tasks. It is postulated that individuals with routine expertise maintain their performance but halt their learning (Chi, 2011) and thus do not further develop into the stage of adaptive expertise. Secondly, Hatano and Inagaki (1986) suggest that adaptive expertise is after all domain-dependent because it is through accumulated experiences that adaptive expertise develops. In line with this conceptualization, researchers typically define the situation in which adaptive expertise is beneficial over routine expertise as changes in work and/or job task requirements (Allworth and Hesketh, 1999, Blickle et al., 2011, Griffin and Hesketh, 2003), changes in the complexity of situations (Chen, Thomas, & Wallace, 2005), changes from usual to unusual situations (Joung, Hesketh, & Neal, 2006), or changes from common to exceptional situations (Neal et al., 2006).

The focus on ‘change’ distinguishes research on adaptive expertise from research on expert performance. The latter type of research tries to identify individuals who perform on a superior level on tasks representative for their domain (Ericsson, 2007, Ericsson and Towne, 2010). Through analysis of their performance on standardized tasks it is possible to identify abilities of experts within a domain. In contrast to expert performance research, the tasks with which to analyze adaptive expertise are not standardized tasks within the experts’ domain, but novel tasks within or even outside their domain. Research on adaptive expertise should thus not be placed within the research tradition of expert performance research. While this research is moving away from its classical focus on chess players, musicians and sportsmen, it still focuses on analyzing the performance of individuals who have achieved a sustainable and observable streak of top performance on standardized tasks within their domain.

Research on professional expertise distinguishes itself from traditional expertise research by perceiving expertise as a developmental process observable through the problem-solving skills of individuals (Tynjälä, Nuutinen, Eteläpelto, Kirjonen, & Remes, 1997). Another important difference is its strong focus on the social environment as a place in which learning happens. This is included in the dimensions of social recognition and growth and flexibility of professional expertise (Van Der Heijden, 2000). These two dimensions, a focus on development and the social environment, pinpoint the differences between expert performance and professional expertise. Adaptive expertise narrows the operationalizing lens further down by only looking at the developmental dimension of professional expertise. These differences between expert performance and adaptive expertise result in a number of characteristics of adaptive expertise research. Firstly, studied tasks need not be standardized nor representative for the domain; however, they need to represent a realistic problem. Secondly, participants are not selected for their track record of superior performance in their domain, but they should also not be novices. Ideally, they have some years of work experience. Thirdly, performance should be measured based on speed, accuracy and feasibility of proposed solutions to unfamiliar problems.

Starting from our preliminary description of adaptive expertise and how research on adaptive expertise differs from expert performance research, a systematic literature review was conducted to detail characteristics of adaptive expertise and the environments in which individuals with a high level of adaptive expertise excel. We aim to answer four research questions. To create a well-founded conceptual understanding of adaptive expertise, the aim of the first two questions is to pinpoint which learning and personality-related factors are characteristic for adaptive expertise and not for routine expertise:

  • 1.

    What learner characteristics (knowledge, skills, regulation processes, and past experience) influence adaptive expertise?

  • 2.

    What personality factors influence adaptive expertise?

    The goal of the latter questions is to discover which environmental factors benefit behaviors indicating adaptive expertise:

  • 3.

    What task and training characteristics (e.g., instruction, task complexity) influence adaptive expertise?

  • 4.

    What characteristics of the learning climate (e.g., tolerance of mistakes, supervision) influence adaptive expertise?

Section snippets

Method

To answer the research questions a systematic review has been done. This method has been chosen for its transparency and reproducible process (Cook, Mulrow, & Haynes, 1997). A systematic review allows to discover the consistency and variation within studies in one field (Davies, 2000) and thus to provide an exhaustive summary on the relevant studies for the research questions. To retrieve the necessary studies, the databases of Business source premier, CINAHL, Emerald Insights, Eric, MedLine,

Sample descriptive

In the articles the dependent variable was defined as adaptive expert or adaptive expertise (5), adaptive performance (15), and adaptive transfer (1). Two articles were published before 2000, 12 before 2010, and 7 after 2010. Quantitative studies were conducted 14 times and seven studies used a mixed-method approach. Ten studies were conducted at the workplace, six in an educational context, and five were simulation studies. Workplace studies were conducted in several industries (hospitality = 2;

Discussion

The frequent changes in the current work environment driven by task and knowledge volatility (Howard, 1995, Molloy and Noe, 2009, Tannenbaum, 2001) calls for experts who possess the required domain expertise and can quickly overcome changes. Such experts are known as possessing adaptive expertise (Hatano & Inagaki, 1986). To further the understanding of the concept, this review set out to synthesize the findings about adaptive expertise in terms of its characteristics (research questions 1 and

Conclusion

In this review we have synthesized the research on individual and environmental characteristics related to adaptive expertise. This advances the field by offering an empirical basis for characteristics of adaptive expertise and how they differ from routine expertise. By establishing these characteristics, research into its development can pick up, as a concept is better rooted in evidence. The review also unearthed areas, which need further research, most importantly the knowledge

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