Tacit-knowledge tests may also be a better predictor than measures of personality, cognitive style, and interpersonal orientation as suggested by the findings from the Center for Creative Leadership study (Wagner and Sternberg, 1990). Sternberg and Grigorenko recently developed a test of common sense for the work place (e.g., how to handle oneself in a job interview) that predicts self-ratings of common sense but not self-ratings of various kinds of academic skills. The test also predicts supervisory ratings at a correlational level of about 4.

Finally, there is evidence that tacit knowledge may even correlate negatively with measures of academic cognition and achievement in some environments. In a study in a rural village in Kenya, Sternberg et al. (in press) developed a test to measure children's tacit knowledge for herbal medicines used to treat various illnesses. Parasitic infections are endemic among this population, and knowledge of these medicines and how to use them is important to adaptation to the environment. This knowledge, however, is not acquired in the classroom, but rather in the community from family members and healers.

The tacit-knowledge test for herbal medicines consisted of brief stories describing the specific manifestations of a given illness and provided the child with options regarding how to treat the illness (see Sternberg et al., in press). The tacit-knowledge test, along with the Raven Colored Progressive Matrices test (Raven, 1958), the English Mill Hill Vocabulary Scale (Raven, Court, and Raven, 1992), Dholuo (home language) Vocabulary Scale, and school-based measures of English and math achievement, were administered to 85 children ages 12 to 15. The tests of academic cognition were all significantly and positively correlated with each other. Scores on the tacit-knowledge test correlated in a negative direction with all of the academic cognition tests, and showed a significant negative correlation with scores on the vocabulary tests. Tacit-knowledge scores also exhibited a significant negative correlation with English achievement. Sternberg et al. concluded that practical cognition, as manifested in tacit knowledge relevant to adaptation in daily life, may be distinct from the kind of academic cognition associated with school success. The negative correlation between tacit-knowledge scores and some of the academic-cognition measures supports the claim that expertise developed in one environment (e.g., school) may have limited application in other environments (e.g., home or community life). Thus, there is a growing body of evidence, in work, school and community settings, which suggests that tacit knowledge measures a distinct construct from general, academic cognition.