Making meaning out of noise. A knowledge management core competence for higher education students
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/VJIKMS-12-2016-0070 |
| Date | 13 November 2017 |
| Published date | 13 November 2017 |
| Pages | 506-521 |
| Author | Jorge Cegarra-Sánchez,Juan-Gabriel Cegarra-Navarro |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management,Knowledge management systems |
Making meaning out of noise
A knowledge management core competence for
higher education students
Jorge Cegarra-Sánchez
Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain, and
Juan-Gabriel Cegarra-Navarro
Facultad de Ciencias de la Empresa, Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena,
Cartagena, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The environments providedby classrooms to facilitate learning among students can be seen as
useful vehicles for making meaning out of gossip, lies, exaggeration and partial truths (i.e. counter-
knowledge). This paper aims to focus on professional learning communities as a process to counteract the
problem of counter-knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper has analysed the relationships between professional-
learning communities and counter-knowledge using an empirical study of 210 undergraduate students to
identify whether there is a significantimpact on student achievement by professional learning communities.
This study usesPLS-Graph software version 3.0 to conduct an analysis of the data collected.
Findings –Outcome findings support that professional learning communities provide a way of
counteractingcounter-knowledge and the noise heard through gossip,lies, exaggeration and partial truths.
Originality/value –Results also confirm that counter-knowledge is a variable that, when controlled, has
the effectof strengthening the relationship betweenlearning and student achievement.
Keywords Professional learning communities, Counter-knowledge, Student achievement, Goals
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Academic goals are relatedto motives of an academic nature that students use to guide their
classroom behaviour (De la Fuente,2004). There are many factors of the social environment
which could affect how students actually perform. For example, by using the unverified
information of social media,students are exposed to a vast amount of lies and exaggerations
(Kurland and Pelled, 2000). The knowledge acquired from these unverified sources is what
in this paper has been termed “counter-knowledge”(Thompson, 2008); such knowledge may
play different roles in students’goal orientations (Cegarra et al., 2016). While there are
authors who argue that counter-knowledgemay be useful for conveyance of information to
others, social influence and entertainment(Yerkovich, 1977;Baumeister et al., 2004), others
suggest that this counter-knowledge potentially leads to a degradation of knowledge (Darr
et al., 1995;Fernandezand Sune, 2009;Markoczy, 1994;Chapman and Ferfolja, 2001).
The above arguments constitute a challenge to knowledge management, and the
dilemma is “Is counter-knowledgegood or bad?”From our point of view, counter-knowledge
is neither good nor bad. In fact, it depends on how people manage their own counter-
knowledge. Professional-learning communities (PLC) describe every imaginable
combination of individuals with an interest in education (Hord, 2004). The relevant
contribution of professional learning communities is to enhance teacher effectiveness as
VJIKMS
47,4
506
Received7 December 2016
Revised23 January 2017
Accepted15 February 2017
VINEJournal of Information and
KnowledgeManagement Systems
Vol.47 No. 4, 2017
pp. 506-521
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2059-5891
DOI 10.1108/VJIKMS-12-2016-0070
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2059-5891.htm
professionals to improve students’learning and therefore potentially also improvesstudent
performance (Cianciolo et al., 2006). In other words, developing PLCs in higher education
institutions may increase students’performance not only by questioning previous
knowledge or statements (Matthew and Sternberg, 2009), but also by creating a learning
environment that motivates students to participate (Kuei-Ju, 2015;Treagust et al., 2016). In
turn, this may help the students to achieve academicgoals (Geary, 2016).
Bologna process has introduced direct and indirect changes in the structure of the
teaching process, which are re-oriented to a more student-centred approach geared to
meeting students’learning needs for the purpose of their subsequent integration into the
labour market. An important contribution in this regard can be connected back to the
existence of PLC, which promotes a collaborative culture within schools and classrooms,
giving a major boost to the closer collaboration between students and teachers(Louis et al.,
1995;Treagust et al., 2016). This paper develops a research model to analyse the
relationships between counter-knowledge, professional learning communities and students’
goal orientations(SGO) in higher education.
A higher education institution has features of a knowledge intensive company, is skills
intensive and has a diverse workforce (Cegarraet al., 2016). In this domain, PLCs resemble a
knowledge structure, since these communitiesare essentially informal and “produced by its
members through mutual engagement”(Wenger, 1998). It should be noted here that while
the use of knowledge management structuresto support solutions to a company’s problems
has been extensively studied for more than 20 years, there are few studies on the
relationship between knowledge management structures and higher education students
(Bhusry and Ranjan, 2011;Bolisani and Scarso, 2015). Regarding this, to the best of our
knowledge, there are not studies considering the role played by professional learning
communities in counter-knowledge.
This study investigates the impact of counter-knowledge on the relationship between
PLC and SGO. Therefore, based on the above, this empirical study of 210 undergraduate
students in a higher education institution contributes to the discussion of knowledge
management for educationand particularly the notion of PLC as a learning community. The
research questions that motivatedour work are as follows:
RQ1. How does the presence of professionallearning communities affect SGO?
RQ2. Can professionallearning communities enhance SGO?
In an attempt to cover the above-mentioned research gaps and basedon previous literature,
this paper develops a partially mediated model in which counter-knowledge has a positive
effect on the SGO directly and indirectly via professional learning communities. The restof
the paper is structured as follows: The next section describes in detail the theoretical
frameworks that characterise counter-knowledge and professional learning communities.
Following that, the research model and its associated hypotheses are presented. Then, the
methodology used for sample selection and data collection is discussed and data analysis
and results are examined. Finally, the paper ends with a discussion of research findings,
limitations and concludingremarks.
2. Conceptual framework
2.1 Knowledge management and education
The process of enhancing knowledge managementpractices has long assumed a nodal role
in the Bologna process, especiallyconsidering the awareness of its central role in knowledge
economy (EACEA, 2015). In this regard, knowledge management practices based on
Making
meaning out of
noise
507
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