Skill Acquisition in Ballet Dancers: The Realationship Between Deliberate Practice and Expertise

.....................................................................................................viii CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................................................................................. 1 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................................................................... 1 The Study of Expertise................................................................................................................................... 1 Measurement Issues...................................................................................................................................... 11 Invariance of goals and criteria. ............................................................................................................. 11 Objective measures of attained ballet performance........................................................................... 12 Measurement of factors influencing development of expert performance................................... 15 Cultural Differences...................................................................................................................................... 16 Gender Differences ...................................................................................................................................... 17 Summary ......................................................................................................................................................... 18 Hypotheses ..................................................................................................................................................... 19 Motivational Characteristics of Dancers................................................................................................... 20 CHAPTER 2 ........................................................................................................................................................... 22 METHOD .............................................................................................................................................................. 22 Participants ..................................................................................................................................................... 22 Materials .......................................................................................................................................................... 22 Procedure........................................................................................................................................................ 25 Design.............................................................................................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER 3 ........................................................................................................................................................... 27 RESULTS ............................................................................................................................................................... 27 Demographics................................................................................................................................................ 27 Developmental Paths of Professional Dancers as a Function of Their Culture and Their Gender .......................................................................................................................................................................... 27 Development of ballet practice and the amount of accumulated practice. ................................... 28 Expertise and practice hours. ................................................................................................................. 29 Ballet milestones. ...................................................................................................................................... 29 Performance career and training history. ............................................................................................. 32 Daily lives of professional dancers in different countries. ................................................................ 33 Extracurricular activities.......................................................................................................................... 34 Developmental Individual Differences in Attained Ballet Performance among Dancers within a Given Culture: Comparison of Female University dance majors and Professional Dancers......... 35 Development of practice......................................................................................................................... 36 Ballet milestones. ...................................................................................................................................... 36 Daily lives. .................................................................................................................................................. 37 Extra-curricular activities. ....................................................................................................................... 37