Discourse through making: eliciting knowledge to support craft skills learning

In this paper I describe the development of techniques for eliciting craft knowledge for use in an interactive learning resource, illustrated with examples from two practical research projects. In each I explored the skills of both expert and novice craft practitioners, firstly in the field of traditional bowl turning and secondly in the field of traditional clog making. The result of this work was to highlight the personal, context-specific and highly tacit nature of such craft knowledge which is explained through a review of the writings of Michael Polanyi and Donald Schön. I conclude by redefining the concept of knowledge elicitation and transmission in this context. I describe the role of the designer-researcher as helping the expert to articulate their tacit knowledge through stimulating reciprocal reflection between the expert and a novice, and designing interpretation to help bridge the knowledge gap between the two.