Earlier in the week I wrote about how I was struggling with the term knowledge transfer. The post was recognised with loads of replies that have prompted further thinking from me.

Firstly, we the replies confirmed we don’t appear to have a consistent definition of what we mean by the term. If we can’t describe it consistently, how can we know a) what we want, and b) what we’re being offered? The term has, as Paul Matthews identifies, been adopted from another context. Initially used as a term in the academic sector in the 1990s, knowledge management was suggested as a process to ‘push’ research messages to the users of research. It’s easy to understand why it would be seen as a term workplace learning might appreciate. But is that the definition people understand it to be?

I’m not sure we understand what we mean by knowledge; it’s more than just information. The DIKW (Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom) pyramid suggests these are different. If that’s the case, why are we pushing information? We see this in workplace learning – content dressed up as knowledge but information at heart. Part of the issue is, as some people replied, we need to understand the context when people want to use what we’re pushing. Access to information doesn’t mean knowledge.

Knowledge appears to be an underpinning of performance – many people agreed that without knowledge, performance will suffer. My concern is that we try and measure knowledge by testing memory of information. We see it regularly – tests pre and post learning interventions to check there has been dome form of knowledge transfer.

I think we should be testing cognition:

It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, imagination, intelligence, the formation of knowledge, memory and working memory, judgment and evaluation, reasoning and computation, problem-solving and decision-making, comprehension and production of language. Cognitive processes use existing knowledge to discover new knowledge.

Cognition – Wikipedia

Cognition is complex and involves taking information, recognising its value and applying it in context. If you can’t measure this, how are you checking for effective knowledge transfer?

I’m still thinking this through and happy to chat if anyone wants to continue the discussion.