Educational Research Methods
This is a personal site of Keith S. Taber to support teaching of educational research methods.
(Dr Keith Taber is Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.)
A site to support teaching and learning...
Public Knowledge
Publication is seen to be an important part of the research process, as research that is not disseminated cannot make an original contribution to public knowledge.
It is common to discriminate between personal knowledge and public knowledge.
Personal knowledge is available to the individual - it is often considered to be represented in some form of cognitive structure (e.g. in memory, in the brain).
Public knowledge is a useful referent. But it is less clear precisely what public knowledge is (an ontological question) or ‘where’ it could be located.
However, it is not obvious exactly how we should define knowledge or what we should count as knowledge!
