Bases for conceptualisation of the notion of expert thinking

Abstract

Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade This paper presents the bases for conceptualisation of the notion of expert thinking: the key concepts from the L.S. Vygotsky's theory and modern theories of giftedness, as well as empirical findings about the differences in achievement of gifted students from different academic study groups. We first present the conceptual core of the notion of expert thinking, i.e. the concept of artificial development from the sociocultural-historical theory of Vygotsky. Then we proceed to the bases which refer to relevant theoretical discussions and empirical findings about the development of giftedness and expertise, indicating that the phenomena of giftedness and expert thinking can be considered as general developmental psychological problems and in the context of general cognitive development and thinking. Special part refers to empirical data about differences in achievement in psychological tests by the most successful intellectually gifted students from various academic study groups. The paper also includes the working definition of expert thinking, which is defined as thinking of higher order, developed under the influence of culture and systematic education, in the course of which deep knowledge structures are acquired, enabling performance of specific patterns of intellectual operations which depend on particular epistemological nature of individual knowledge domains.

Keywords

• expert thinking
• allomorphic development
• artificial development
• giftedness
• expertise