The American Heritage Dictionary defines expertise as, “specialized knowledge or skill; see expert.” Expert is defined as, “Having or demonstrating great skill, dexterity or knowledge as a result of experience or training.” Transferring “expertise” to a new worker is a much different process and experience than simply conveying knowledge. One measure of gaining expertise is the utilization of the knowledge in the skilled performance of a task.
When it comes to task-based expertise, this definition can be applied with a little elaboration. Some examples of technical task performance are: setting up a multi-axis NC lathe to material, machine and engineering specification; welding exotic metals; sterilizing surgical instruments; or troubleshooting an electronic circuit board. These all represent higher order skills developed over time and with practice. Knowledge of “how to” never is enough when it comes to high-order skill requirements of technical tasks.
relevant core knowledge + relevant abilities + relevant core skill competencies = capability to learn new tasks
capability to learn new tasks + (new task instruction + repeated successful practice) leads to expertise in a practice or process.
This is the basis of apprenticeships from the birth of crafts and trades. While knowing about a process is important, and being physically (e.g. vision clarity, finger dexterity, hearing acuity) and psychologically (e.g. ability to tolerate low lighting, able to withstand heights, tolerance of interpersonal relationships) capable of learning a process is necessary, being skilled implies the synthesis of these components plus requisite core-skills for the task (e.g. trigonometry, reading to appropriate level, basic manual lathe operation). Add new task knowledge with practice to achieve a higher order skill of benefit to an employer or customer.
It is for this reason that apprenticeships in the middle ages lasted a lifetime for some trades. It was felt that some higher order skills were so technically difficult that only a lifetime of practice could allow someone to become an expert. In modern time, until 2008 apprenticeships lasted more in the neighborhood of 6-8 years. Given the fact that it is widely recognized today that most employees transition from one job to another in 3-4 years, it became more difficult to complete an apprenticeship if part of an employment opportunity. Finding employers to host apprenticeships was even more difficult for this reason, citing the high cost and low return of doing so.
In 2008, the US Department of Labor broadened the number of models that they accepted as apprenticeship models by two, adding the Competency and Hybrid approaches to the Time-based models. These two new models allow for a shortening of the length of an apprenticeship to 1-6 years (a more reasonable time frame might be 3-4 years) and allow more job classifications to be “apprenticeshipable.” But in order to maintain an apprenticeship’s credibility, the “hands-on” training traditionally considered to be the task-based on-the-job training has to be structured, deliberate and measurable. It cannot simply be an arbitrary number of hours in certain general areas. It also has to be “job-relevant,” with the employer’s acceptance being a measure of recognizable success. The reason for this is to focus the task-based learning and “accelerate” the path to the high-level of expertise outcome.
Likewise, any related technical instruction needs to be focused on clearly adding value to the structured on-the job training process. Proactive Technologies’ approach to accelerating the transfer of expertise is illustrated in the chart above and represents many years of continuous improvement.
Read more on the accelerated transfer of expertiseTM system or “accelerated worker development” or “apprenticeships” using the PROTECH® system and approach©.
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