Contextual and strategic knowledge in the acquisition of design expertise

This study examines the acquisition of expertise in designing and developing information systems. The aim was to investigate how practical experience is related to contextual and strategic knowledge in problem-solving. Using a combination of expert-novice comparisons and longitudinal methods, professional systems analysts were compared with novices at the beginning and end of a seven month project-based course. The results show that during the course, the novices acquired a good deal of strategic competence in using domain-specific methods. Compared to the novices, the experts showed a more comprehensive and higher level of awareness of clients' contextual constraints. The study demonstrated qualitative variation in the subjects' solutions to design problems. Five distinct solution patterns were found; these appeared to originate mainly from the settings of the subjects' practical work. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.