Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition At Ephox
I recently read PragDave's blog talking about the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. As I am generally interested in going back to first principles, I went to the library and borrowed the book From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice, which Dave cites. It makes for an interesting read discussing the way in which expert nurses use a mixture of intuition, and observations to come to conclusions, and to guide their treatment of patients.
The book
- Novice/Advanced Beginner (Advanced Beginner was added in From Novice to Expert),
- Competent,
- Proficient,
- Expert, and
- Master (not listed in From Novice to Expert), this is a state that experts enter into from time to time.
It has been obvserved that people display different performance characteristics (especially problem solving techniques) at each level. Novices use basic rules, and often struggle in working out how to best apply the rules to a situation, where as Experts often use a strong sense of intuition gained through experience to guide what they do. The concept is that as one gains more mastery in a skill, they are increasing in their ability to apply abstract rules to concrete situations.
While reading about these levels, I have been trying to apply them to Software Development, and my understanding of myself and the situation I am in currently (of course I am not the first to do so). The Dreyfus model is not the most cutting edge, and a search of http://scholar.google.com will show much of the controversy about this. It does, however, seem to work for me, and has been useful in helping me understand myself and the world.
In self-reflection, I know that I would consider myself as at least nearing the expert status in some areas of software development (particularly in web development). I will often move in an intuitive way when building new features in a test driven way.
I would also see myself as being pretty close to being an expert in the use of IntelliJ. It is a great IDE that I can now intuitively use to navigate through code, write code, and improve code.
When it comes to the Ephox EditLive! codebase, however, I am painfully aware of the fact that I am not an Expert. At best I would approach a degree of being proficient, and this is mainly based on my experience in other areas.
There are probably two main reasons for my not firing on all cylenders currently. We are using Eclipse (I know that it is much closer to IntelliJ than in the past, but I am not yet thriving in this environment) I am still learning the Ephox codebase, and the specifics of this environment. Just as nurses need to adopt to different clinical environments, I am having to adapt to the EditLive! codebase, and the domain of Applet based html editing.
AJ is currently the true expert in the EditLive! codebase. He has been around while most of the code was written, has a strong sense for where the pain points are, particularly in some of the libraries we are dependant on. When working out a solution to a problem he will often use his intuition to guide where he is going with his analysis.
There is more to the Dreyfus model than a way of categorising people. There are some interesting implications for the learning strategies that people should try and apply based on what stage of proficiency they currently are at. The ways in which a beginner moves on to being a novice are very different to what will help a proficient person move on to being an expert. The general learning techniques are:
-
Novices and Advanced Beginners need to learn the basic rules, and be given feedback to help bring behaviour into conformance with the rules. In IT, Pair Programming is a great technique for this.
Interestingly the Dreyfus article talks about a compentent person being able to the perceive the meaning phrases or aspects — such as a pilot talking about "verging on stall conditions" — and being able to respond to these aspects following guidelines. This seems to dovetail nicely in with the ideas of the pattern movement. So perhaps the advanced beginner should start learning some basic patterns.
- Competent people benefit from simulations that help them further develop their application techniques. Being able to apply the patterns that they have learnt, and through the use of simulations know how to apply them.
- Proficient people learn best through case studies.
- Experts will also learn through their experience, and continue to learn and develop their understanding, occasionally entering the state of Mastery.
I am going to be taking some of the lessons learnt form the Dreyfus model, trying to create situations where I can learn in appropriate ways. As I would see myself as at least nearing the proficient stage, I will be pushing myself towards learning through the use of case studies. For the work at Ephox this will involve questions like:
- How did you isolate and fix a particular bug?
- Talk to me about the integration with Alfresco.
- What did you learn through adding "Track Changes" support in the editor?
I believe this will be the best type of learning for me to be doing, and the fastest way for me to move on to a better standard of performance.
Another application point is in documentation. We have a rich Advanced API, with a decent volume of documentation, but it doesn't always make it easy for people to know how to use it. The advanced Java Developer would be looking for the examples of how to use the EditLive! API.
A final application point I wonder about is the use of the "Guideline for Reporting Critical Incidents" to help gather good case studies for developers to work with.
The Dreyfus Model of learning is a useful tool for software developers, and I think we should try and use these techniques to work towards being better developers of software.