Further Reading — Chapter 26: Learning, Growth Mindset, and Expertise

Foundational Academic Sources

Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406. The foundational paper on deliberate practice. The Berlin violin study, the retrospective practice hour analysis, and the theoretical framework distinguishing deliberate practice from general engagement are all here. Long but accessible; the introduction and discussion sections are particularly useful. Essential for understanding where the popular "10,000-hour rule" comes from and how the popular version differs from the actual claim.

Dweck, C. S. (1999). Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development. Psychology Press. The academic account of mindset theory, more comprehensive than the popular Mindset book. Covers the original research on implicit theories, the studies on praise type (intelligence vs. effort), and the response to challenge and failure under different mindset conditions. More technical than the popular version but presents the actual evidence base.

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. The systematic review of ten learning techniques that is the empirical foundation for the chapter's claims about what works and what doesn't. Reviews practice testing, distributed practice, interleaved practice, elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, re-reading, highlighting, summarization, keyword mnemonics, and mental imagery. Open-access. The most useful single paper for anyone who wants to understand what the evidence actually says about learning strategies.

Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (1992). A new theory of disuse and the relationship between item accessibility and item recoverability. In A. Healy, S. Kosslyn, & R. Shiffrin (Eds.), From Learning Processes to Cognitive Processes: Essays in Honor of William K. Estes (Vol. 2, pp. 35–67). Erlbaum. The source of the desirable difficulties concept. Technical but the concept itself is accessible: learning conditions that impede acquisition can enhance long-term retention and transfer. The distinction between storage strength and retrieval strength is conceptually important.

Books for General Readers

Ericsson, A., & Pool, R. (2016). Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Ericsson's own popular account of deliberate practice theory, written explicitly to correct the popular misrepresentations of his work (including Gladwell's). Covers the violin study, the mechanisms of deliberate practice, mental representations, and the implications for skill development across domains. More accurate to the actual research than any popularization of his work, because it is written by the researcher. The recommended starting point for anyone who wants to understand deliberate practice at the popular level.

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House. The popular account of the fixed vs. growth mindset research. Well-written and accessible; covers the research on implicit theories, the praise studies, and applications in education, parenting, coaching, and business. The 2017 "updated" edition adds a section addressing critiques of the replication attempts. The most widely read book in this chapter's reading list; a useful introduction even for readers who will go on to the more technical accounts.

Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Harvard University Press. The most practically useful and accessible book on the cognitive science of learning for a general audience. Covers retrieval practice, spaced repetition, interleaving, desirable difficulties, and metacognition. Written by researchers (Roediger and McDaniel are cognitive psychologists) but aimed at a general reader. The chapter on "illusions of knowing" is particularly valuable. Required reading for students and anyone responsible for others' learning.

Carey, B. (2014). How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens. Random House. A journalist's accessible treatment of learning science. Covers spacing, interleaving, sleep and memory, forgetting as learning, and context effects on memory. Less technically rigorous than Make It Stick but more narrative and engaging. A good companion for readers who want the science with more storytelling.

Syed, M. (2010). Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success. Fourth Estate. Syed's account of deliberate practice and expertise, covering similar territory to Ericsson's research from a journalist's perspective. More accessible than Ericsson's own account; somewhat dated on the replication issues with mindset research but useful as an introduction to the practice-over-talent framework.

On Metacognition and Learning

Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906–911. The paper that established metacognition as a research area. Flavell's concept of thinking about thinking — monitoring and regulating one's own cognitive processes — is foundational for the chapter's section on calibration and knowing what you know. Short, influential, and historically important.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Relevant to this chapter through the concept of cognitive ease: mental fluency is associated with feeling of correctness and truth, even when the feeling is unwarranted. This is the mechanism underlying the illusion of knowing — the passive re-reading produces cognitive ease, which feels like understanding. Chapter 5 ("Cognitive Ease") is directly relevant.

On Expertise and Skill Acquisition

Dreyfus, H. L., & Dreyfus, S. E. (1986). Mind Over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer. Free Press. The source of the five-stage skill acquisition model (novice to expert). Dreyfus and Dreyfus's account distinguishes rule-following (novice) from holistic, intuitive expertise in ways that directly challenge computational models of intelligence. The framework is practically useful for thinking about where a learner is and what kind of instruction or experience they need at each stage.

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. Little, Brown and Company. Included not as an authoritative source but as the popularization that created and then distorted the "10,000-hour rule." Useful to read alongside Ericsson's Peak to understand both what was captured (practice matters enormously) and what was obscured (deliberate practice matters; general practice does not produce the same effects). A useful example of how research findings get simplified in popularization.

The Character Reading Lists

Jordan is working through: - Make It Stick (Brown, Roediger, McDaniel) — found it while researching how to structure the team's methodology sessions - Peak (Ericsson & Pool) — read the chapter on mental representations twice; now thinking about what the analogous concept is for strategic thinking

Amara is working through: - Mindset (Dweck) — assigned in a development course; reading it alongside her own clinical development experience - Make It Stick (Brown, Roediger, McDaniel) — Sasha recommended it; both are experimenting with retrieval practice for the board exam they're planning for in two years