Exploring the Five Types of Knowledge and Their Impact

Not all knowledge is created equal – and not all of it can be written down in a textbook. When a chemistry student memorizes the periodic table, that’s one kind of knowledge. When a seasoned teacher instinctively knows how to calm a restless classroom, that’s another kind entirely. Understanding the different types of knowledge is not just an academic exercise. For educators, it is a practical framework that shapes how they design lessons, support learners, and measure understanding. This post explores five foundational types of knowledge – explicit, tacit, received, subjective, and procedural – examining what makes each unique, how it is transmitted, and what it means for the classroom.

What do we mean by “types of knowledge”? 🔗

Knowledge is far more than a collection of stored facts. As researchers in knowledge management note, it encompasses facts, concepts, practical know-how, and insights that individuals acquire through education, experience, and interaction. The challenge for educators is that these different forms of knowledge do not all travel the same way. Some can be written in a manual; others live only in the hands of a skilled practitioner. Recognising these distinctions allows teachers to move beyond one-size-fits-all instruction and meet learners where their understanding actually lives.

The five types discussed here draw from both knowledge management literature and the influential work of Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, whose landmark study Women’s Ways of Knowing (1986) categorised epistemological development into received, subjective, procedural, and constructed positions – a framework that continues to inform educational theory today.

Explicit knowledge: the documented kind 🔗

Explicit knowledge is the most straightforward type to understand because it is the most straightforward to share. It is easily articulated, documented, and shared, stored in books, manuals, databases, and other formalised structures. In the classroom, it shows up as the content of textbooks, lecture slides, and standardised curricula – the periodic table of elements, historical timelines, mathematical formulas.

The defining feature of explicit knowledge is transferability. It can be quickly transmitted from one individual to many others, and it tends to be organised systematically so that new knowledge builds on existing foundations. A student in Mumbai and a student in Manchester can access the same chemistry formula with equal ease.

The educator’s role with explicit knowledge 🔗

The teacher’s primary job here is clarity and accuracy. Using charts, structured explanations, and well-organised resources, educators ensure that codified knowledge is not just delivered but genuinely understood. The risk with over-relying on explicit knowledge alone is that it can reduce learning to memorisation – students retain facts without developing the depth to apply them.

Tacit knowledge: the unspoken expertise 🔗

Tacit knowledge is the type that experts struggle to fully explain. It is highly personal, hard to formalise, and deeply rooted in an individual’s actions, experience, and values. The concept was introduced by philosopher Michael Polanyi in his 1958 work Personal Knowledge, built on the insight that people know far more than they can articulate.

A seasoned teacher who instantly senses which student is struggling, or an experienced doctor who reads subtle clinical signs before ordering a test – these are examples of tacit knowledge in professional practice. Teachers develop micro-strategies over time that can be retrieved without conscious thought, guiding decisions about pacing, tone, and classroom management in ways that are nearly impossible to write down.

How tacit knowledge is transmitted 🔗

Because tacit knowledge resists documentation, it demands a different mode of transfer. It is transferred not only through verbal exchanges but also through observation, imitation, and personal practice under mentorship. This is why apprenticeships, internships, and mentoring relationships remain irreplaceable in education and professional development – they create the conditions for tacit knowledge to pass between people. Research published in Frontiers in Education confirms that mentoring functions directly promote tacit knowledge transfer in novice teachers, particularly through modelling behaviours and shared cultural practices in schools.

For classroom teachers, this has a direct implication: creating space for students to observe, practice, and reflect – not just to read and memorise – is essential to developing tacit understanding in any subject.

Received knowledge: learning from authority 🔗

Received knowledge describes a position where the learner sees knowledge as something that exists outside themselves, held by authoritative sources and passed down intact. In this epistemological position, the process of learning involves receiving and repeating the knowledge and words of authorities – truth is understood as fixed and externally located.

This is a recognisable stage in many learners’ development, especially at the beginning of their educational journey. A first-year student who copies notes faithfully and hesitates to question a textbook is operating largely from a received knowledge position. The receiver listens and passes knowledge on to others, shaping their thoughts to match those in authority, often without the confidence to voice a personal interpretation.

The educator’s role with received knowledge 🔗

Received knowledge is not a deficiency – it is often the necessary starting point for learning anything new. Providing a reliable foundation of accurate information is important. However, the educator’s long-term goal is to move students beyond passive reception. This means creating opportunities for questioning, discussion, and critical engagement with the information they receive, so that received knowledge becomes the platform for deeper, more active forms of knowing rather than the endpoint.

Subjective knowledge: the inner voice as authority 🔗

Subjective knowledge marks a significant shift in how a learner relates to truth. Rather than looking outward to authorities, the learner begins to trust their own experience, intuition, and perspective as valid sources of knowing. Subjective knowers rely on their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences – what Belenky and colleagues called the “infallible gut” – viewing knowledge and truth as inherently personal and experienced rather than solely intellectualised.

In educational terms, this is the student who pushes back in a seminar, who draws on personal experience in an essay, or who develops a genuine point of view about a topic rather than simply restating what they have read. This kind of knowing is vital to engagement. It signals that a learner is no longer a passive recipient but an active participant in constructing meaning.

Balancing subjective knowledge in the classroom 🔗

The challenge educators face here is real. Subjective knowledge, when unchecked, can tip into a refusal to engage with evidence – the belief that personal feeling is always sufficient. Subjective knowers may block out conflicting opinions, which can limit their critical development. The educator’s role is therefore to validate personal perspective while also building the skills needed to evaluate evidence, consider alternative viewpoints, and test ideas rigorously. A classroom where students feel safe enough to voice their perspective, but challenged enough to defend it, is exactly the environment that nurtures this balance.

Procedural knowledge: knowing how to do 🔗

Procedural knowledge is the knowledge of action – knowing not just what something is, but how to do it. It involves knowing how to perform tasks and is typically evaluated through performance rather than written tests. Tying a surgical suture, solving a multi-step algebra problem, conducting a lab experiment, playing a musical instrument – all of these require procedural knowledge.

Procedural knowledge develops through repetition and practice. Research shows that procedural knowledge often qualifies as tacit knowledge, since it transfers mainly through direct experience rather than formal instruction. This is why a student can read every step of an experiment in a manual and still struggle to execute it – the knowing resides in the doing, not in the reading about doing.

Interestingly, studies with amnesiac patients reveal that procedural and declarative knowledge can develop independently – a person can learn a motor skill without consciously remembering the learning episodes. This underscores how procedural expertise is neurologically and cognitively distinct from theoretical knowledge.

Teaching procedural knowledge effectively 🔗

Educators need to think carefully about how they structure practice. Research in knowledge transfer theory suggests that teachers should increase the number of discussions over practices and cases, guiding students to think and solve problems – because learning by doing enhances knowledge absorption. Assessment of procedural knowledge should focus on the dynamic process of performance, not just correct final answers. Project-based learning, lab work, role plays, and iterative skill practice are all pedagogical strategies that serve this type of knowing well.

How the five types work together in education 🔗

These five knowledge types are not stages a learner passes through and leaves behind – they coexist, interact, and build on one another. A student learning to write an argumentative essay needs explicit knowledge of essay structure, tacit knowledge of tone and persuasion built through reading, received knowledge from the teacher’s feedback, subjective knowledge to form a genuine argument, and procedural knowledge to actually draft and revise it. The most complete learning experiences engage all five dimensions simultaneously.

For educators, this means no single teaching strategy will serve all types of knowledge equally. Lectures serve explicit knowledge. Mentoring and modelling serve tacit knowledge. Open discussion and reflective tasks develop subjective knowledge. Hands-on practice builds procedural knowledge. And creating a classroom culture where received knowledge is the beginning – not the limit – of learning moves students toward deeper epistemological development.

When teachers are aware of these distinctions, they can design more intentional learning environments – ones that equip students not just with facts, but with the capacity to question, create, and apply knowledge in the complex, real-world contexts they will actually face.

What do you think? Does your current teaching or learning environment make space for all five types of knowledge, or does it tend to privilege one – such as explicit knowledge – over others like tacit or subjective? And how might education look different if procedural and subjective ways of knowing were assessed with the same rigour as factual recall?

References

1. https://whatfix.com/blog/types-of-knowledge/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Ways_of_Knowing
3. https://blog.udemy.com/types-of-knowledge/
4. https://www.differencebetween.net/business/difference-between-tacit-knowledge-and-explicit-knowledge/
5. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/jwl-02-2023-0025/full/html
6. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2022.772638/full
7. https://mason.gmu.edu/~pbailey2/portfolio/docs/educ800waysofknowing/paperonwomenswok.html
8. https://psychologyfor.com/types-of-knowledge-and-their-characteristics/
9. https://shelf.io/blog/9-different-types-of-knowledge/
10. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8039507/