3.4.1 Identifying and measuring tacit knowledge

Measuring tacit knowledge takes into account the realistic, contextualized quality of the knowledge. Responses to realistic problem situations are used as indicators of an individual's possession of tacit knowledge. Wagner and Sternberg (1985) devised a method of presenting scenarios to individuals that depict the types of problems they face in their given pursuits. These scenarios reflect the types of situations in which recognized domain experts have acquired knowledge characterized as "tacit." Because tacit knowledge is not readily articulated, we rely on observable indicators (e.g., responses to the scenarios) to assess whether an individual possesses knowledge characterized as tacit, and can apply that knowledge to the situation at hand. The responses reflect an individual's skill to recognize and take appropriate action in a given situation, and presumably, their procedural knowledge.

Deriving the information for these scenarios poses a challenge in that the tacit knowledge of domain experts must somehow be identified. Domain experts are appropriate sources for identifying tacit knowledge because in order to achieve their expert status, they likely have acquired knowledge that others have not (i.e., knowledge without direct support). As a subset of procedural knowledge that is not readily articulated, tacit knowledge is not likely to be elicited directly from individuals. However, since tacit knowledge is experience-based, we attempt to identify the knowledge in the recalled experiences of individuals. In other words, when individuals have difficulty expressing their action-oriented knowledge, we attempt to elicit memories for the particular episodes that produced that knowledge.

In the next section, we describe methods used to elicit examples of tacit knowledge from domain experts and to develop instruments to measure the acquisition and use of tacit knowledge within a given domain. The methods, which have been applied in domains ranging from education to military leadership, have evolved over the course of our tacit-knowledge research, resulting in a refined and detailed methodology for eliciting and measuring tacit knowledge. We devote the next section to describing this methodology as it plays an important role in understanding the findings from tacit-knowledge research and offers a tool for studying tacit knowledge in any domain.