How do novices differ from experts? And how do we measure this? I'm interested in software engineering expertise, because I want to know what experts have figured out about nature of software engineering.
This project could involve reading and reviewing books, conducting a laboratory study, interviewing software engineers, and many other options. This topic is suitable for students at all levels. I had a team of undergraduates conduct a laboratory study on expertise last spring.
Here are some papers to get you started.
Susan Elliott Sim, Sukanya Ratanotayanon, Oluwatosin Aiyelokun, and Erin Morris, "An Initial Study to Develop an Empirical Test for Software Engineering Expertise," Institute for Software Research, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA, Technical Report #UCI-ISR-06-6, May 2006.
Philip E. Ross, "The Expert Mind", Scientific American, August 2006.
Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich, Robert R. Hoffman, K. Anders Ericsson, The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, Cambridge University Press, 2006. (Also available from Amazon.)