Research and Development of Tacit Knowledge

The study of tacit knowledge or tacit knowledge is an important subject of modern epistemology. Thinkers represented by M., a famous British physical chemist and philosopher, have challenged the limitations of orthodox epistemology research paradigm through the study of tacit knowledge, especially questioned the objectivism knowledge and scientific view represented by logical positivism. The latter focuses on the theory of scientific research, and holds that the ideal of science and philosophy of science is to pursue the proposition of expressing the objective world in a completely clear way. Tacit epistemology, on the other hand, breaks through the limitation of epistemology focusing on scientific theory and turns its attention to the practice of scientific research, revealing that there are many uncertain factors in the concrete practice of scientific research that are difficult to express in a clear way. The value of tacit epistemology lies not only in recognizing the famous saying state and tacit state of knowledge, but also in demonstrating that the essence of knowledge is tacit. All knowledge is either tacit knowledge or rooted in tacit knowledge, and the meaning of knowledge expressed by various symbols is endowed by cognitive tacit understanding. In other words, tacit knowledge means the true understanding of individuals. As a result, people's understanding of the complexity of knowledge has been greatly expanded, and the rationality of relying on famous sayings for knowledge transmission and cultural inheritance has been fundamentally subverted. Moreover, due to the individual characteristics of tacit knowledge, people's status as cognitive subjects can be highlighted. Learners receive direct guidance from language, characters, formulas, charts and other aspects under clear norms, and the result depends on whether they can give meaning to famous symbols with their own tacit ability. The acquisition of tacit knowledge requires cognitive subjects to live in the details and clues of cognitive objects, bodies and cultural heritage. This shows that participation in practice, participation in the world, integration into the same cultural history, and strengthening the dialogue and interaction between subject and object are the fundamental ways to acquire tacit knowledge.

In the process of theoretical construction of tacit epistemology, psychology has made a contribution that cannot be ignored. Polanyi absorbed the views of gestalt psychology on wholeness and parts, details and synthesis: subliminal perception experiments in experimental psychology proved that tacit knowledge is not a mysterious experience, but does exist in human cognitive system. Since cognitive psychologist Reber (A A.) and others developed the experimental method of artificial grammar, the study of tacit understanding mechanism and its characteristics, namely implicit cognition or implicit learning, has always been a crucial field of psychological experimental research. The unspoken tacit knowledge itself does not rule out the possibility that it can be revealed, while the study of implicit learning demonstrates that it is possible and there are rules to follow to acquire knowledge at the verbal level.

From the above, tacit epistemology pays attention to the concrete practice of scientific research, opposes the knowledge transmission and cultural inheritance relying solely on symbolic norms and methods, highlights people's cognitive subjectivity, and emphasizes practice and participation. Since the second half of the 20th century, these viewpoints have been recognized and responded in many disciplines. We can understand the role of tacit knowledge and implicit learning in human life from different angles.

The response to tacit epistemology in the field of education is quite enthusiastic and diverse. The development of tacit epistemology in the above fields has attracted the attention of educational circles. Educational psychologists and instructional design experts try to design a real learning environment that can support implicit learning according to the tacit knowledge and the dependence of tacit knowledge on situation and practice, thus innovating the traditional classroom learning environment; In the aspect of teachers' professional development, tacit knowledge enlightens us to change the narrow way of teacher training that pays attention to systematic knowledge learning, develop teachers' learning, promote the manifestation of tacit knowledge through qualitative methods such as observation and narration, and promote teachers to enjoy knowledge and experience in teaching practice. At the same time, teachers are encouraged to play the role of implicit learning mechanism in the learning culture of cooperation and consultation, gradually complete the induction education of new teachers, and gradually support each teacher's personal knowledge. The related research in the field of principal's career development is similar. The research on school management innovation leads us to pay attention to the flow of tacit knowledge in the organization and the decision on the actual actions of principals, teachers, students and parents. Educational organizations need to be reformed, so as to facilitate all parties in the school to participate in the educational cause, support the development of tacit knowledge in line with the strategic development goals of the school, and make the formal organizational structure of bureaucratic management gradually develop into a strong support for all learners. (1) The value of tacit knowledge in learning and research lies in the tacit nature of knowledge.

We are generally concerned that Polanyi's tacit knowledge theory regards explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge as a pair of corresponding basic concepts, and identifies and demonstrates the existence of tacit knowledge. But what we should pay more attention to is that Polanyi's philosophical purport is not only to classify knowledge, but to reveal the hidden roots of knowledge and prove the decisive role of tacit knowledge in human knowledge. Polanyi pointed out that tacit understanding is essentially a kind of understanding, an ability to understand, grasp and reorganize experience, so as to achieve rational control over experience. The tacit ability of the mind plays a leading and decisive role in all levels of human understanding, that is, the tacit dimension has theoretical priority over explicit knowledge (Yu Zhenhua, 200 1). "Tacit knowledge is self-sufficient, while explicit knowledge must depend on tacit understanding and application. Therefore, all knowledge is either tacit knowledge or rooted in tacit knowledge "(Polanyi, 1969). If human knowledge is a big tree, then the exposed parts (leaves, stems, stems) we can see are clear and explicit knowledge, while the huge roots hidden in the soil are tacit knowledge. Therefore, a completely clear knowledge is incredible, just like a tree without roots can't survive. So, as researchers who pursue understanding in learning and teaching, can we go downstream? Without learners' tacit understanding of knowledge, it is unthinkable to impart knowledge in a completely didactic way.

(B) There is interaction between tacit understanding and explicit knowledge.

Although Polanyi emphasized the dependence of explicit knowledge on tacit knowledge, and even put forward that "although language has expanded human intelligence and greatly surpassed the field of pure tacit knowledge, the logic of language itself-the way language is used-is still implicit" (Polanyi, 1969), this does not mean that famous symbols (oral and written languages, formulas and charts) have been devalued. Polanyi pointed out that although animals and people had primitive tacit understanding ability in infancy before they mastered the language, with the help of famous symbols as media and tools, people can constantly reorganize their own experiences, which made people's tacit understanding ability get a qualitative leap and reached a height that was difficult to reach before the language level.

Therefore, we are also inspired. What we need to correct is a teaching method that completely ignores the existence and priority of tacit knowledge and only pays attention to the transmission of symbols, formulas and words that are divorced from students' experience and understanding. This is by no means to abandon the teaching design with clear knowledge and clear ways of giving and receiving. The dialectical relationship between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge shows that if explicit language and other symbolic representations are properly used to guide and support learners' understanding, so that the learning of explicit knowledge is rooted in tacit understanding and tacit knowledge is expressed in an appropriate form, it is possible to expand understanding in negotiation and communication.

(C) Tacit knowledge theory highlights the subjectivity of people as cognitors.

Under the domination of objectivism view of knowledge and science, people emphasize the objectivity, non-individuality and complete clarity of knowledge. Accordingly, in the study of western epistemology in the 20th century, clear and formal knowledge and theory became the theme of epistemological analysis, and what we saw was the "fading out" of man as the subject of cognition. Polanyi, on the other hand, did the opposite. The debate on the dimension of tacit knowledge fully shows that as the most fundamental cognitive ability of human beings, tacit knowledge and cognitive subject are inseparable for a moment. If it is associated with a completely clear ideal of knowledge, the objectivism view of knowledge emphasizes the universality and publicity of knowledge, while in Polanyi's view, what is associated with tacit understanding is his view of individual knowledge. The concept of individual knowledge fully shows the internal relationship between knowledge and individual cognition, and the acquisition of tacit knowledge must go through the discussion of "living in the body", which highlights the important position of cognitive subject. Unlike Gestalt psychology, which regards tacit understanding as a passive experience, Polanyi believes that tacit understanding is a process in which the knower actively exerts his tacit understanding ability.

Therefore, tacit knowledge theory also provides unique epistemological support for building a learner-centered learning environment. In this sense, epistemology and constructivism of tacit knowledge come together.

(D) Tacit knowledge also has significant "situational" and "cultural"

A large number of studies on tacit knowledge show that tacit knowledge exists in large quantities. As Polanyi said, people live in it, just like living in their own bodies (Shi Zhongying 200 1). The so-called "situation" means that the acquisition of tacit knowledge is always linked with the "situation" of a specific problem or task, and it is an intuitive synthesis or grasp of this specific problem or task situation. The so-called "culture" means that tacit knowledge has stronger cultural characteristics than explicit knowledge, which is inseparable from the concepts, symbols and knowledge systems shared by people in a certain cultural tradition. Clear knowledge often conveys some explicit social norms, while people's actual behavior is often dominated by "hidden rules" deeply rooted in social and cultural traditions. Only by living in this life practice can we master this real law in the form of tacit knowledge. In this sense, the culture of tacit knowledge can also be understood as the practicality of tacit knowledge.

According to this logic, real learning must take place in a specific situation, which is closely related to the social life practice in which learners live. To understand learners, their learning and their success or failure, we must find the source of tacit knowledge from their real life, family culture, classroom culture, community culture and even social culture. Therefore, the organizational design of learning should consider establishing contact with a large number of pre-concepts that learners already have. Most of these pre-concepts are hidden in their minds in the form of tacit knowledge, and new learning activities should be closely related to learners' life practice. Teachers should also constantly reflect on their tacit knowledge and eliminate the existing inappropriate potential assumptions about students and learning.

The study of tacit knowledge and tacit understanding has opened up a new horizon of learning research, and also impacted people's previous inherent teaching concepts, just as Brown and Duguid (Browne &; Duguid, 1992) said, "Even if a learner doesn't learn what a teacher, educational technology or career tutor tries to teach them, he can't come to the conclusion that he hasn't learned anything." In addition to purposeful teaching, how this kind of implicit or implicit learning occurs and how to promote the effectiveness of this kind of learning are common concerns of philosophy, psychology, anthropology and people engaged in learning and teaching research. Since tacit knowledge is hard to say, the acquisition of tacit knowledge is a process that makes people feel secret. Polanyi tried to explore the truth of tacit understanding from the perspective of philosophy, Ye Xiaokai and Wenger tried to explore it from the perspective of cultural anthropology, and Brown and Duguid tried to explore it from the perspective of educational psychology. This paper holds that the tacit understanding mechanism implied by them provides theoretical resources for designing and constructing a learning organization that supports tacit knowledge acquisition or implicit learning.

(A) Polanyi's "auxiliary consciousness" (metaphor of residence)

Polanyi believes that in order to grasp an object, we need to integrate various clues, details and parts into a comprehensive body to understand it. The core structure of tacit understanding is the auxiliary consciousness of various clues, details and parts, the central consciousness of the object, and the knower who connects the two. The concentration consciousness of an object must depend on various clues, details and some auxiliary consciousness related to the object. For example, in nailing activities, our concentrated awareness of nails depends on the auxiliary awareness of the palms and fingers holding the hammer. Tacit cognition is developed in the dynamic process from auxiliary consciousness to concentrated consciousness. Polanyi vividly called this auxiliary consciousness "retention" or "internalization". Being aware of something means that we put ourselves into it, live in it, or internalize it as a part of ourselves. In Polanyi's view, dwelling is not only the cognitive means of the knower, but also his way of existence. In this sense, he thinks: "All understanding is tacit understanding, and all understanding is achieved through dwelling." (Quoted from Yu Zhenhua, 200 1)

In the tacit understanding, we need to live in three aspects: the details, body and cultural details that make up the complex. First of all, to understand the complex as a concentrated object, we must live in the details and clues that make it up. Polanyi believes that this is also the process of our participation and involvement in the world. All understanding is based on the details of the objects we live in. Secondly, to understand foreign objects, we must rely on the auxiliary consciousness of the body. The mind lives in the body, and our body is a tool for understanding external things, but at the same time, we realize our existence through the body's perception and action, and realize that we are an active cognition. Thirdly, living in the cultural heritage condensed from past experience (mainly the explanatory framework of various famous sayings) is a powerful and rational tool for us to understand the world, and living in the framework of famous sayings is the basic premise of our understanding. Obviously, Polanyi explained to us with the concept of dwelling, the premise of tacit knowledge acquisition must be to put the knower in a specific context related to the knowledge object, including the specific details of the object itself and the cultural practice context of the object's existence, and at the same time integrate the knower's own existence with the context of the object. Tacit knowledge occurs in the process of changing from these dwellings to concentrated consciousness.

(B) Ye Xiaokai's metaphor of "legal marginal participation"

Apprenticeship research is an important way to study the mechanism of learning in contemporary times. Among traditional and contemporary apprentices (Ye Xiaokai collected five typical cases of apprentices: the midwife of Mexican Yucatan Maya, the tailor of Liberian Waie and Gola, the helmsman of American Navy, the butcher of American supermarket, and the "abstainer" of American Alcoholics Association, see LaveandWenger, 199 1), professional knowledge is passed down from generation to generation. There is no clear text, and even in the case of midwives, there is little oral knowledge transfer. Then, how are these tacit knowledge related to daily work practice mastered by apprentices or novices? Is it generally believed that apprentices imitate and copy masters?

Ye Xiaokai used the analytical method of "decentralization" and the concept of "legal marginal participation in the same practice subject" to explain this learning mechanism. Legitimacy means that the apprentice's identity in * * * is affirmed, which means that the resources and practices in * * * are open to the apprentice; Marginal participation, as opposed to full participation or complete participation, means a state of diversity and diversity, more or less participation. Individuals in the isomorphism of * * * have the opportunity to advance along the track from bystander, companion to demonstrator of mature practice, that is, from marginal participants to core members. "The identity of practice * * * is a complex condition for the existence of knowledge, which is quite important because it provides necessary explanatory support for giving meaning to what it inherits. Therefore, any knowledge exists in cultural practice, and participating in this cultural practice is the epistemological principle of learning. " (Wingel, Ravander, 199 1)

The key to legal marginal participation is that it takes participation as a way to learn (including absorption and absorption) "practical culture". The long-term marginalization of law provides learners with the opportunity to take practical culture as their own. Apprentices have gradually collected a general idea of the composition of * * * practice from a wide range of marginal angles. These angles include: who is involved; What they do; What is daily life like; How do masters talk, walk, work, and generally manage their lives? How to deal with people who do not belong to the same spiritual practice; What other learners are doing; What learners need to learn to become a mature practitioner and so on. In the marginal observation and participation, the disciples gradually understood: when, how and how the predecessors cooperated, sought conflicts, and understood their love, hate, respect and envy. And these are embedded in the daily practice scene of * * *, which constitutes the cultural character of * * *, and it is tacit knowledge that is difficult to express and impart in formal learning. With legal marginal participation, they are "transparent" to new members, so that they can legally enter this potential cultural context. Different from formal learning in which the school system explicitly and directly teaches students what they think is important, legal marginal participation allows learners to start with marginal, trivial and seemingly unimportant things before learning important knowledge. At the beginning, tailor apprentices always make some preparations for the tailor's work every day and process some details of the finished clothes. At first, the midwife apprentices only engaged in marginal activities such as running errands, transmitting information, boiling water and handing scissors; In the alcoholics abstinence association, new members listen to the stories told by old members, compare their own experiences and stories, and learn the ways of speaking, communication rules, behavior characteristics and so on from the differences. In their years of study, they constantly move from the surrounding learning courses to the mature practice and finally enter the mature daily business (this is also a process from the edge to the core). In this dynamic participation process, they gradually confirmed their identity as members of the same body and became a part of the same body reproduction cycle in time.

(3) Brown and Duguid's metaphor of "stealing knowledge" Brown and Duguid echoed the views of Ye Xiaokai and Wenger, and applied the concept of "legitimate marginal participation" to the analysis of school teaching and learning (J.S.BrownandP.Duguid, 1992).

Brown and Duguid were inspired by a passage by Tagore, an Indian poet and musician. Tagore's function to the teacher who was hired to teach his music was described as follows: "A great musician came and he lived in my house. He made a big mistake ... and decided to teach me music, but in the end, he didn't learn anything. However, I did inadvertently pick up some stolen knowledge from him. " (quoted from J.S.BrownandP.Duguid, 1992) Then, Brown and Duguid used "stolen knowledge" as a metaphor for knowledge obtained outside the overlapping formal teaching process, and put forward the viewpoint of "legally stealing knowledge".

Why did "stealing" happen? They believe that one of the important reasons is that in the explicit and knowledgeable teaching, the complex network relations in the real world are rarely reflected, and a lot of knowledge is bound to be hidden in the practice itself, and only those who enter it can "steal" when needed. Therefore, Brown and Duguid think that the acquisition of tacit knowledge should be viewed from the perspective of situation. Moreover, like Ye Xiaokai, they particularly emphasized that the situation includes not only the body, but also the society. If this situation is of great conceptual significance, it must be explored by learners from a social and historical perspective. From this point of view, the best way to support learners to successfully steal the knowledge implied in practice is to look at learning from the demand side instead of the supply side. In other words, instructional designers or teachers do not decide in advance what they need to learn, but "externalize" and "clarify" this knowledge in isolation from their background; Instead, we should provide them with a really rich exercise, including explicit exercise and implicit exercise-network, so that learners can hide on the edge and randomly access anything they need.

Therefore, Brown and Duguid strongly call for reforming the current situation of separating classroom teaching from continuous practice, and bridging the gap between the classroom that only attaches importance to explicit knowledge teaching and the practical practice that supports the acquisition of a large number of tacit knowledge.