• Event Theory
  • A theory that can be measured - that is to say, it can be proven and judged by its accuracy.
  
  Construct Theory
  • A theory that makes for an abstraction. They cannot be measured, but rather are evaluated in terms of their usefulness. These types of theories are just ideas and concepts, and so it makes no sense to try to 'prove' them.

• The first stage of the Dreyfus model is that of the novice. Whenever you venture into a completely new field, you’ll start on this stage.
  
  A novice will have little or no experience in a particular domain. This means that everything they attempt to do will have a novel feeling to them. They are usually concerned with their ability to succeed in the new, alien-like domain, and whilst they don't particularly want to learn much, they seek to accomplish a set goal. Because of their lack of experience, when things go awry they are often left confused and not sure what to do.
  
  As programmers, we can relate to this. When beginning programming, we all had idealistic views of projects we were going to undertake to make ourselves wealthy, successful, or well-known (only to have reality knock us to our senses). We were very goal-directed, and whilst we were motivated to achieve our goal, we weren't overly interested in learning the ins-and-outs of the language at hand to get there. This naivety in thinking is all-too common for the novice.
  
  Whilst novices don't really have any measure of capability, they can be given some capability through following context-free rules (think PC World support).
  

• Next up, we have the advanced beginner. At this stage, we begin to try some new things out, but we still have difficulty in getting past problems encountered. We still don't want to learn the mundane theory yet, but we also don't want to be retaught the absolute basics again. Holistic understanding is still non-existent, and so the context of problems still isn't considered too important when problem solving since we simply don't have the past experience yet.
  
  Again, as programmers we should know this feeling. We've overcome the novice stage of not really knowing what our code is doing, to having some idea of what's going on but without knowing (or caring about) the bigger picture of things - there's a lack of having a holistic understanding of the language. We understand the syntax of our language, can implement its basic constructs, and can create basic applications. But we still cannot, however, quickly problem solve with our language because of our lack of experience, and cannot leverage more intricate features of the language and its libraries.
  
  Whilst we still like to follow simple, context-free rules, we can begin to deviate from these a little.
  
  It's also worth noting that this category caters for the largest group of people on the stages spectrum. Many people will only ever reach this far, usually because of second-order incompetence (where you're unskilled and unaware of it, and so you have an inflated opinion of your ability).

• The third stage is having competence in a skill. At this level, we have the ability to more swiftly solve novel problems (partly because of past experience) by ourselves and can apply advice given by others somewhat effectively. We can develop conceptual models of the problem at hand, and can work with those mental models effectively - we're becoming better problem solvers. At this stage we seem to be a lot more independent. Unfortunately, the ability of self-correction is still lacking, and we still can't really reflect upon past mistakes.
  
  For programmers at this level, they can look into a variety of the libraries and technologies available for their language. They can problem solve with these new technologies, and can leverage some of the more complex features of a language. But because they still lack much of a holistic understanding, they aren't able to integrate the usage of multiple technologies together for a better-designed and more robust application.
  
  Having a holistic understanding with the ability to perform self-correction and be able to reflect upon past mistakes is still lacking or non-existent. Also, metacognitive abilities (the ability of being self-aware) are still very much underdeveloped. This often means that people of this level (and even more so of the lower levels) generally have an inflated opinion of their own skills and so will usually end up overestimating themselves. The only way to overcome this problem (often referred to as second-order incompetence) is to move further up the stages in the Dreyfus model.

• At the proficient stage, we have a need for a holistic understanding. We will seek out and want to understand the bigger picture of our skill and will become frustrated when presented with oversimplified information. We have the ability to correct previous poor performance on tasks through being able to reflect upon our approaches to them and revise them for a better performance next time. We can also learn effectively from the experience of others, such as when hearing about another's past project problems and being able to aptly apply the solutions to their issues within our own projects. Furthermore, we can reflect upon feedback given to us and take full advantage of it to better ourselves.
  
  For programmers, this means that we can leverage more advanced software development techniques. This can include being able to appropriately apply software design patterns, use programming methodologies and adhere to their maxims within specific contexts, leverage arcane features of your language, solve novel, intricate problems efficiently, and so on.
  
  This is perhaps the largest step up in the Dreyfus model between each of the stages.

• The final and most sought after stage is that of the expert. Experts are the primary sources of information in their field and always try to seek better ways to carry out tasks in the most efficient manner. They work intuitively and rely on knowing the full context of the problem to aptly apply the right solutions. Their vast experience enables them to perform targeted, focussed pattern matching, where they can simply tell what pieces of information are and are not pertinent to a given problem. It's almost as though they just instinctively know the right answer. Many will write books, speak at conferences, and innovate new technologies.
  
  Experts are still, however, very cautious - especially when things go awry for unusual reasons. They will show far more self-doubt than someone lower down on the Dreyfus model because of their far more developed metacognitive abilities (also hence the quote at the top of this article).

(May 25, 2014 08:21 PM)ѕнα∂σω Wrote:  So far this is a great read and puts a lot of things into perspective. However, I have one question. What exactly do you mean by "holistic understanding"?

I'll write a proper reply once I finish - just wanted to ask that question.

We need more of these types of articles around here.

(May 25, 2014 10:11 PM)~Dec Wrote:  When you talk of a holistic understanding, you essentially mean that you do not only understand the concept as a whole, or what parts of the whole concept are necessary, but how each and every part/step/process of the whole concept fits together.

(May 26, 2014 04:26 AM)ѕнα∂σω Wrote:  I see, thank you.

The article itself was a great read and brings one back to his senses, in a way. I was mostly thinking of myself and Python while reading - it appears that I'm somewhere in between competent and proficient. I don't want to overestimate myself, but... The first to paragraphs of competent apply to me, even though I'm a bit higher than that. But I'll call it competent so as not to overestimate. However, I feel that I'm not completely lacking in a holistic understanding of the language and in the ability to reflect and self-correct. In that sense, I would say I'm proficient.

However, skill-wise, I'm probably still only competent.

I see lots of people boasting about how they are experts at something or at least proficient at something. I usually laugh it off because I know of only a few people on the forum who are indeed approaching real proficiency. Hard to find such people because it seems to be in the human nature to overestimate oneself.

Anyways, thanks for the read. Great article. Really helped put things into perspective and allowed for a self-evaluation.

(May 26, 2014 08:09 AM)Haxalot Wrote:  Thanks for the comment. When learning about the Dreyfus model, I too felt that whilst I could reflect upon and correct my previous performance, I didn't completely fit into the category of proficiency for my particular skill. I think we cannot be cleanly bound to a particular category because we develop parts of the same skill at different levels, and therefore we find ourselves overlapping to the next level before having finished the current level we are at.

This is where the value of underestimating yourself comes in. It prevents you from thinking that you are better than you really are, and so you avoid complacency when building up a new skill.

(May 26, 2014 06:23 PM)Skyla Blue Wrote:  Very nice article you've got here. I do have one question though. Where do the seemingly smart, yet extremely douchey people fit in that model? Are they proficient? Are they experts? Are they simply novices with big egos? I've encountered several people who are like that.

(May 26, 2014 06:23 PM)Skyla Blue Wrote:  EDIT: Also, what are your thoughts on child prodigies? Are they legit? I don't remember his name off hand, but some kid makes quite a bit of money selling iPad/iPhone apps, and he is 15 (at the time of the Youtube video, so he is probably 16 or 17 now). I looked at some of his apps, and they were extremely basic, a calculator, some organiser thing, etc. Maybe he's selling some super crazy stuff on the underground, but from what I saw he's no prodigy programmer.

(May 27, 2014 03:08 PM)lalalox4 Wrote:  Very interesting article, I greatly admire your skill in the learning field and your will to share knowledge about it.