Expertise
Now that I’m back in Toronto (though not quite on EST), I’ve had a bit of time to think over my research. Emerson was kind enough to review my study design and share his literature. Thanks very much for that!
One issue that arose from our discussion is my usage of the term “expert”. In research literature, expert programmers are generally those in industry who are paid to program. In all the software firms I’ve worked for, I’ve observed huge differences among these “experts” to the extent that I don’t feel right calling them all “experts”. I can’t call these “lesser experts” novices because that term refers to inexperienced programmers, such as most CS undergrads.
I ended up choosing a term used by Sonnentag’s study of software design expertise[1]: high and low performers. So now I can talk about high- and low-performing novices, as well as high- and low-performing experts.
My new problem is how to operationalize “performance”.
[1] S. Sonnentag. Expertise in professional software design: a process study. The Journal of applied psychology, 83(5):703–715, October 1998.