More on the Does-Practice-Make-Perfect? Conundrum
Our unique data set overcomes some of the measurement problems in patient outcomes encountered in other studies and improves the possibility of identifying and separating the impact of learning by doing from other effects. We cannot conclude that the outcome of LASIK surgery improves as an individual surgeon’s experience increases, but we find strong evidence that experience accumulated by surgeons as a group in a clinic significantly improves outcomes.
Study available here (gated, but with abstract). HT to Jason Shafrin.
Nice to see the health literature lining up with the education literature. Experience seems to improve teacher efficiency up to a point–all gains are over after three to five years of experience. But people who work in high achieving groups (certain magnet, charter, and private schools) all do better as a group.
My suspicion is that good people clump. The high achieving groups succeed because they select for high performers.
Most research finds that high-volume surgeons do better than low volume surgeons. I suspect that experience matters up to the point where you know all there is to know.
I think Linda may have the right idea.