Robert Evans
Research in Expertise
My main research focus is building a programme of work around the idea of Studies in Expertise and Experience (SEE). The SEE programme was first proposed in the Third Wave of Science Studies paper co-authored with Harry Collins and published in Social Studies of Science in 2002. The paper, which is one of the most cited in the journal’s history, set out an initial typology of expertise that has now been developed into:
- a ‘Periodic Table of Exeprtises’, setting out ten different types of expertise and their inter-relationships
- Rethinking Expertise, a book-length exposition of the nature of expertise published by The University of Chicago Press
- The development of the Imitation Game as a methodology for investigating expertise, particularly the category of ‘interactional expertise’
- An emerging international network of scholars that are applying and testing this ideas in a range of empirical domains.
Details of this programme, including links to publications, a glossary of terms and information about forthcoming events are available on the ALL @ SEE website. Examples of some of the more positive responses to this work can be found in my own ‘News Archive’, see for example:
- Rethinking Expertise: Reviews and Features
- SEESHOP 1: The Third Wave rolls on...
- Imitation Game gets "Slated"
- Imitation Game Research Reported in Nature
Expertise - key ideas
The key idea behind our theory is that, since knowledge is the property of social groups, then expertise is the product of successful socialisation within a group or 'form of life'. In this way, we can say that expertise is both real -- one has either been socialised into a group or not -- and social at the same time.
Using this idea we have begun to think about how much socialisation is needed to become fully socialised and what sort of knoweldge or expertise results from just a little bit of socialisation. The two most significant distinctions we have made as a result of this work are:
- Between contributory and interactional expertise. Contributory expertise is what fully socialised members of a community have. It refers to the ability to engage in the fully range of activities associated with membership of a community. It this encompasses tacit knowledge, practical and craft skills, and linguistic skill. Interactional expertise, onthe other hand, is contributory expertise minus the practical or craft skill. As a result a person with interactional expertise is fully able to talk knowledgably about a topic but is unable to carry out the practical tasks associated with it. More informally, a person with interactional expertise can 'talk the talk' but not 'walk the walk'.
- Between substantive and meta expertise. Substantive expertise refers to expertise within a specific domain of practice. It might be expertise in some field of science or it might be expertise in some other specialist practice, such as sheep farming, bonsai tree growing or playing cricket. The characteristic of this kind of expertise that it is found within particular social groups (some of which may be larger than others). Meta-expertises, in contrast, refer to the skills used to evaluate the expertise of others. This kind of expertise is necessary if we are to understand how it is possible to make judgements about plumbers, car salesmen and TV pundits whose field of expertise we may know very little about but about whom some judgement of credibility is needed.
Combining the two dimensions of expertise, together with more standard distinctions tacit and explicit knowledge, has enabled us to produce a detailed classification of the different types of expertise and the kinds of contributions they give rise to. An extended version of this classification is available from the Expertise Website.
Expertise - Main Publications
The work on expertise has now given rise to several publications. The most important of these are listed below, though there is also a separate page for the original "Third Wave" paper:
Sudies of Expertise and Experience
Collins, H M and Evans, RJ (2007) Rethinking Expertise, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Click here for some recent reviews
Collins, H M, Evans, R J, Ribeiro, R and Hall, M (2006) ‘Experiments with Interactional Expertise’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 37 (4): 656-74. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2006.09.005>
Collins, H M and Evans, R J (2002) ‘The Third Wave of Science Studies:
Studies of Expertise and Experience’, Social Studies of Sciences, 32
(2): 235-96. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306312702032002003>
Also, reprinted in Evan Selinger and Robert P. Crease (eds) (2006) The
Philosophy of Expertise, New York: Columbia University Press. Pp.
39-110.
Evans, R J (2008) ‘The sociology of expertise: the distribution of social fluency’, Sociology Compass. <http://www.blackwell-compass.com/home_sociology_compass>
Evans, R J and Collins, H M (2007) ‘Expertise: From Attribute to Attribution and Back Again,’ in Edward J Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch and Judy Wajcman (eds) Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (3rd edition), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pp. 609-30.
Evans, R J (2007) ‘Social Networks and Private Spaces in Economic Forecasting’ in Collins, H M (ed) ‘Case Studies of Expertise and Experience’, special issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 38(4): 657-666. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2007.09.011>
Collins, H M, Evans, R J and Gorman, M (2007) ‘Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise’ in Collins, Harry (ed) ‘Case Studies of Expertise and Experience’, special issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 38(4): 686-697. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2007.09.003>
Evans, R J and Plows, A (2007) ‘Listening Without Prejudice? Re-Discovering the Value of the Disinterested Citizen’, Social Studies of Science, 37(6): 827-854. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306312707076602>
Links to other publications can be found on the Expertise Website.
Last updated on 22 February, 2008