{"id":27216,"date":"2019-04-30T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T15:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=27216"},"modified":"2019-04-30T02:00:10","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T07:00:10","slug":"apsu-psychological-science-professor-and-student-to-publish-chapter-in-oxford-handbook-of-expertise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2019\/04\/30\/apsu-psychological-science-professor-and-student-to-publish-chapter-in-oxford-handbook-of-expertise\/","title":{"rendered":"APSU psychological science professor and student to publish chapter in Oxford Handbook of Expertise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – \u201cBefore the Soviet Union fell, they thought they were rife with these natural chess players,\u201d Dr. Kevin Harris, Austin Peay State University (APSU) professor of psychological science, said.<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/a>

Austin Peay State University professor Dr. Kevin Harris and student Nick Foreman review expert literature at the library. (APSU)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Shortly before their empire collapsed, the Soviets liked to brag about how smart they were.<\/p>\n

For years, that country\u2019s propaganda experts claimed their citizens were inherently better at intellectual games, like chess, than people from other countries. According to these state-sponsored legends, the Soviets were born chess masters.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when the Iron Curtain fell, they found these chess academies where they would replicate famous chess matches. Lower-level chess students would look at a specific situation from a famous game and make the next move. If they differed from what the grand masters did, they would coach the students more. It was a process of making them better,\u201d stated Harris.<\/p>\n

\"APSU's<\/a>

APSU’s Dr. Kevin Harris has earned a national reputation for his research on experts.<\/p><\/div>\n

Harris knows a thing or two about this subject. In the last few years, his research into what makes people experts in their fields has earned him a national reputation. That\u2019s why in 2016 one of the world\u2019s top academic publishers invited Harris to contribute a chapter for the proposed \u201cOxford Handbook of Expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The APSU professor was flattered by the invitation, but what he did next was a bit surprising.<\/p>\n

[320left]Harris immediately asked one of his undergraduate students, Nicholas Foreman, to co-author the chapter with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew Nick from other classes, and how quick he was,\u201d Harris said. \u201cHe\u2019s a quick read, he was perfect to bring in on this. And he was fascinated by the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book, which will feature their names as co-authors, is set to be published in December 2019.<\/p>\n

A Surprise Offer<\/h3>\n

Foreman, a Nashville native, almost missed out on this opportunity to be published with some of the top names in his field. After high school, he originally enrolled at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, as a computer science major, but that school and department didn\u2019t feel like the right fit for him. He transferred to Austin Peay and soon discovered what he was meant to be doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found good mentors here who were going to help me in psychology and help me pursue research and maybe a Ph.D.,\u201d Foreman, now an APSU psychology graduate student, said.<\/p>\n

\"APSU<\/a>

APSU Student Nick Foreman contributed to the chapter in the Oxford Handbook.<\/p><\/div>\n

That help arrived at the end of his undergraduate career when a research project he was involved with fell through. Foreman visited one of his favorite professors, Harris, and asked if he had any research opportunities that could help flesh out his resume.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not expect Oxford Handbook chapter to be the idea that came out of his mouth,\u201d Foreman said. \u201cI thought, \u2018Oh, this is quite an opportunity.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Foreman knew a bit about expertise and expert psychology, but he needed to immerse himself in the topic if he hoped to co-write a chapter for Oxford Press. He spent the next few months almost living in the Woodward Library, reading articles and books on the subject.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fianc\u00e9 joked that she didn\u2019t see me,\u201d he said. \u201cI would just go to the library and sit there for so many hours doing the lit review. I met with Dr. Harris and said, \u2018This is what I\u2019m getting.\u2019 Then he said, \u2018Now that you\u2019re understanding the field, here\u2019s what I need you to find.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chapter<\/h3>\n

After numerous drafts, working with another co-author at England\u2019s Durham University, Harris and Foreman submitted their chapter, \u201cRepresentative Tests and Task Development and Simulated Task Environments.\u201d<\/p>\n

[320right]Their chapter looks at tasks and other scenarios, similar to the Soviet Union\u2019s chess academies, that help identify and produce experts in different fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, if you\u2019re a hospital, how do you identify the best nurses or surgeons,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWe need the representative test to identify what makes them better than others. After you understand that, you can move on to identifying what got them to next level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collaborations like this are what brought both Harris and Foreman to Austin Peay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose Austin Peay in part because of those opportunities for mentorship,\u201d Harris said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have chosen to go to grad school if a professor hadn\u2019t told me I was going to belong there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The APSU professor is now doing the same thing for Foreman, who already knows he made the right decision to transfer to this University.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustin Peay is objectively impressive,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it would be this impressive when I first came here. I knew it was going to be a good school, but I didn\u2019t know I was going to have these opportunities.\u201d    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – \u201cBefore the Soviet Union fell, they thought they were rife with these natural chess players,\u201d Dr. Kevin Harris, Austin Peay State University (APSU) professor of psychological science, said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,262,23500,512,825,14145,33515,26454],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-74Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27217,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27216\/revisions\/27217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}