Tacit Knowlege is the kind of knowlege that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing or verbalising. [1] Tacit knowlegde forms the basis of our understanding of the world. It is the foundation for learning language, recognising faces, distinguishing sounds and so on and so forth. We know this because one is not able to articulate his knowledge in these domain and yet he performs such actions with a fair amount of expertise. However the contribution of tacit learning in expertise is an open question.
In our discussions we agreed upon the fact that tacit learning forms a critical part of any knowledge system. Whether it is a chess player engaged in a GrandMaster competition or a musician perfoming a solo, implicit memory is an important shareholder in their descision making process. But the interesting part that was brought up in the discussion was that implicit memory only helps us focus on a restricted subset of the domain presented based on our implicit memory. More specifically it is based on our previous experience and the patterns extracted from the domain in those encounters that contributed to the end results (or atleast we thought that it did). Thus it is through practise that our understanding of the domain develops and one becomes a expert. This hypothesis is strongly backed up by the fact that the expertise of a expert is by and large domain specific as pointed out in Ericson's article
But at the same time the hypothesis brings up an interesting question.
What's the role of teaching/coaching in all this
As someone pointed out in the discussion that coaching is not passing on expertise from one person to another (which is obvious
because expertise, as we said, is difficult to articulate) but rather training to acquire those skills faster. Typically coaching
restricts the space where the implicit learning process is searching for patterns. But ultimately it is through practise that the
individual will acquire those skills. Coaching reduces the time required for practise (which is essentially the implicit learning
process)
The last point which was raised in the discussion was of un-learning. For example the implicit learning process might lead us into beleiving that "tired" should be spelled "tierd" and "pneumonia" should start with "n". But to a grown up individual these just look wrong. This is because in the process of coaching he was led into beleiving these things and subsequently he un-learned the pattern to replace it with the newer one.
In conclusion, tacit knowledge forms the basis of any learning and hence expertise. However it is training or rigorous practise in that field that turns a novice into an expert. Professional training completes the puzzle by guiding the implicit process and providing pointers (that is the external knowledge) But professional training is as good as the trainee itself or otherwise expertise would have been hereditary.