Evaluating contemporary expertise research with respect to classical engineering management theory

Abstract

Over the past several decades, researchers from the field of cognitive psychology have provided expanded insight into the nature of the varied, complex cognitive mechanisms which enable expertise and expert performance. Emerging research provides convincing evidence that eminent achievement is very strongly (and perhaps exclusively) driven by environmental factors. In fact, mounting evidence from the field of cognitive psychology contends that the cognitive structures of humans are far more flexible than previously recognized and that expert performance "is predominantly mediated by acquired complex skills and physiological adaptations". Science and technology disciplines, such as medicine and engineering, depend on the development of technical competencies in interdisciplinary technical domains which require mastery of dynamic, varied, and complex cognitive mechanisms via continuous learning and adaptation of skills. The purpose of this paper is to present a meta-analytic evaluation of the congruency between the emerging Expertise and Expert Performance Framework pioneered by K. Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, et al and classical engineering management theoretical undepinnings. Classical theory that will be considered include McClelland's Theory of Needs, Senge's concepts of Personal Mastery and Organizational Learning, and Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard. The objective of this discussion is to compare and contrast the expertise and expert performance framework with related commonly accepted and validated engineering management theory; consider the implications of the resulting insight to 21st century aerospace education and workforce development; and examine how expanding insight into expertise development can be harnessed to improve professional development initiatives in the aerospace field.