There are many terms which relate to mental experiences and activities which are used as part of everyday discourse, and which are generally understood in such informal contexts. However, the phenomena described by these terms may also be important foci for research.
The 'mental register' of such terms includes
- knowledge
- thinking
- understanding
- intelligence
- memory
- …
When setting out on research we need to explore the nature of the foci of our inquiries, and operationally define anything that we expect to observe and measure. The term 'ontology' is used to describe the analysis of the nature of something such as a research focus.
What is knowledge?
Consider the question, 'what is knowledge?'
If you think you know what knowledge is, then you can probably answer the following questions:
- Is it possible to have false knowledge?
- Is it possible to have uncertain knowledge?
- Is it possible to know contradictory things?
- Can two different people have knowledge of the same 'thing' (object, event, …) if what each thinks they know contradicts what the other thinks they know?
- Is it possible to share knowledge with others?
- Can knowledge be shared across a social network?
- Can knowledge be found outside of minds – in books, for example?
- Is it possible to have knowledge that you do not know you have?
If you were able to answer those questions spontaneously without any pause for reflection then I expect either (a) you have already thought about this issue in some depth and have come to a clear view on how to understand the term 'knowledge'; (b) you were answering based on an informal, everyday notion of knowledge (which is likely somewhat vague and fluid). If you actually gave some thought to working out what you really think 'knowledge' is in response to these questions, then I would argue that was you 'doing' ontology.
I certainly found in my research on learners' thinking that I had to think about what I meant by knowledge, and came to a view of how I would use the term in my own work.
What is knowledge? (One view at least)
Why does this matter?
I have argued (Taber, 2013) that often when research concerns such foci as someone's knowledge and understanding, researchers FAIL to clearly set out what they mean by such terms (this is certainly seen a lot in science education research). I think this is because the terms are so taken-for-granted in everyday life that researchers simply assume that both they and their readers (a) know and (b) agree whst the terms mean.
This can happen in any area of research but I think there is a particular problem with mental register terms because all normally developing humans acquire as children a 'theory of mind' which supports making sense of the social world, and becomes an inherent part of out thinking from quite a young age.
"There is then a kind of folk psychology of mind that permeates our own thinking (sic) and dialogue and which functions perfectly adequately in normal conversation, but which lacks the precision expected in technical communication. We might refer to this as the mental register, where key terms would include thinking, ideas, understanding, knowledge and beliefs. The mental register does effective work for us in everyday discourse in many communicative contexts, but when we need to specify more precisely what some of these terms refer to, we may soon run into difficulties."
Taber, 2013: 29
The detailed argument setting out many examples of the problem and discussing why it it occurs, and why it matters, can be found in my book Modelling Learners and Learning in Science Education: Developing representations of concepts, conceptual structure and conceptual change to inform teaching and research:
"the mental register: terms such as ideas, thinking and understanding…when research results make claims about learners' ideas or beliefs, then these words ('ideas', 'beliefs', 'understanding', etc.) are being used as technical terms, even though they are everyday words and readers may therefore take for granted a shared meaning for such terms with the report authors. This book argues that it is unwise to assume that we do all share common understandings of such terms and seeks to explore how such words should be understood when recognised as technical terms in science education research."
Taber, 2013: 4
