Contribution to knowledge

The contribution to knowledge is the main criterion for the award of PhD. Both words carry a weight of meaning and context, and are subtly different in different academic disciplines. Many academic journals apply the same test when deciding whether an article is worthy of publication, but practice does vary, so that the criterion of publishable quality is not quite as robust as the test for contribution to knowledge. This discussion leads into one of the most difficult areas of PhD supervision, and there are consequences for the role of the research supervisor in acting as a guide through the ground rules of the discipline.

As discussed in other entries in this blog, the word knowledge intends a limitation to what has been established in the academic discipline. Knowledge is established by means of a rigorous and verifiable process of investigation and analysis, in other words, is accumulated only through published research. There is a total ban on any references to personal experience or other forms of private evidence. To refer to previous knowledge in the discipline we must also avoid citing published research that is no longer regarded as correct, or has been superseded or qualified by later work.

In order to contribute to such a body of research, a researcher must ensure that every statement is either established in previous (but still accepted) research, or is safely concluded from the evidence they are contributing. The rules for what counts as a safe conclusion vary from one academic discipline to another, and the process of examination of research is mostly about this aspect. From a logical point of view, such conclusions are a form of induction and this is known to be dangerous.

The word contribution is intended to mean that the research conclusions are not already known. Potentially, and usually in fact, this means that the results are a surprise. (Dretske’s theory of information provides a quantified notion of “surprisal”.) If they are a surprise in the academic discipline then establishing the results will require a convincing rational argument. In examining a PhD thesis, examiners are looking for just such rigour, according to the requirements of the academic discipline. I hope to discuss this aspect next.

Dretske, F (1981) Knowledge and the flow of information, MIT Press. 0-262-0-04063-8.