Psychological constructions of learning potential and a systemic approach to the development of excellence

ABSTRACT

In this article, we introduce a systemic framework for the development of learning potential to professional excellence inspired by the Actiotope model of giftedness. First, we critically reflect on three theoretical approaches representing different psychological constructions of learning potential. We label these approaches theories of giftedness, theories of practice, and theories of motivation. We explore contradictory ways in which these theories construct key factors that determine the successful development of human potential. Based on this comparison, we discuss the limitations of these theories stemming from their philosophical, methodological, and ideological backgrounds, including disproportionate emphasis on selected developmental factors, implicit one-way causality, and the dominant role of an individual over social influences. We further argue that the contradictory conclusions of these approaches may be reconciled within a systemic framework that acknowledges the reciprocal interactions between the key developmental factors proposed by these approaches, including learning outcomes, achievement motivation, practice and the social environment (including developmental resources and demands). We apply our systemic model in the context of the development of academic careers, in which we document the importance of the proposed components and how their interactions result in the processes of “cumulative advantage”, as well as the context-dependency of the model.

KEYWORDS:

• Motivation
• giftedness
• deliberate practice
• systemic
• development
• critical psychology
• constructionism
• higher education
• academic careers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. While we will discuss these approaches further when presenting our argument for the systemic model, we refer readers unfamiliar with these approaches to detailed reviews explaining their main points (i.e., Pfeifer et al. 2018; Elliot et al., 2017; Ericsson et al., 2018).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (Grantová Agentura České Republiky) research grant GA17-20856S, with the support of RVO 68081740, and by the European Regional Development Fund - Project “Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World” (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000734).