Distinguishing knowledge-sharing, knowledge-construction, and knowledge-creation discourses

van Aalst, Jan

To capture the different ways the seven codes could be exemplified, 33 subcodes were identified and their relevance to each of the discourse modes estimated (see Table 4 in the "Results" section). For these estimates, a three-point rating scale was used (low, medium, high). For example, the subcode fact (under Ideas) was rated high for knowledge sharing and low for both knowledge construction and knowledge creation. In this example, knowledge construction and knowledge creation are called degenerate to indicate that the scale for this code does not differentiate between them. Major review (under Meta-Discourse) was rated low for knowledge sharing, medium for knowledge construction, and high for knowledge creation on the assumption that knowledge creation is generally more complex and requires more time than knowledge construction, so the need for major review is greater. All ratings were completed independently by the researcher and an independent second rater, leading to an inter-rater reliability of .82 (Cohen kappa).