Semiotic Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge:The Case of Psychology

Victor Karandashev, Leningrad State University, Russia

and Grand Valley State University, USA

What is knowledge?

Knowledge is what is known in a particular field: the facts and information.

The knowledge constitute some sort of representation of "the outside world", or ways of dealing with it (directly or indirectly).

Symbolic representations are used to indicate meaning of knowledge.

Semiotics studies signs and sign-systems as symbolic representations.

Any scientific knowledge is such a sign-system. Scientists use signs and sign-systems to code the subject

matter they study and communicate it. Exchange of knowledge through humans necessarily involves

signs and semiotic processes. In an information (knowledge) system, the state of the real

world system is represented by symbols (textual, numeric, or graphical).

A system of connotation is a set of rules that govern the interpretation of these symbols by people.

Effective communication with a set of symbols requires that groups of people share the same system of connotation.

At this point the usefulness of semiotics to study scientific knowledge becomes evident

Semiotic theory concerns the use of symbols to convey knowledge.

What are general characteristics and dimensions of this body of knowledge?

I believe that specific dimensions of sign and sign-systems are especially interesting for the purpose of empirical research.

Morris (1938) delineated three approaches to sign investigation:

semantic - researching the dependence of the sign on its referent;

pragmatic - studying the connection between a sign and its interpreter; and

syntactic - seeking out ties and interdependencies among different signs.

Other researchers added social dimension (Shanks and Corbitt, 1999; Burton-Jones et al, 2005).

The syntactic level of representation is concerned with the form of symbols rather than their meaning.

The semantic level of representation concerns the meaning of symbols.

The pragmatic level of representation concerns the usage of symbols.

The social level of representation concerns the understanding of the meaning of symbols, and takes into account an understanding of different stakeholder viewpoints and an awareness of any biases and other cultural and political issues involved.

The purpose of our study

The purpose of our study was to develop an inventory for assessing the semiotic dimensions of scientific knowledge. Psychology was an exemplary case.

The semiotic scale for assessing psychological knowledge was based on the following three dimensions of knowledge:

(1) semantic, (2) syntactic, (3) pragmatic.

Semantic aspects of knowledge imply how knowledge denotes (or reflect) objects and aspects of reality.

Syntactic aspects of knowledge imply how knowledge is constructed, how components of the knowledge are associated to each other, what rules govern the construction of knowledge.

Pragmatic aspects of knowledge imply how knowledge depends on the people who create, use, and share this knowledge (researchers, students, practitioners), how users of knowledge attribute certain characteristics to it.

– We merged social aspects of semiotics into pragmatic domain since did not find any crucial differences between them for the purpose of our study.

Construct validity of semiotic scale

The scale consists of 52 statements divided into three subscales. The items of the scale in the inventory were constructed according to three lines: semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic.

Semantic scale (How knowledge reflects the reality) – 23 questions (items 1-23)

Syntactic scale (How knowledge is constructed) – 14 questions (items 24-37)

Pragmatic scale (Aspects of object-researcher and object-user interactions) – 15 questions (items 38-52)

Items of semantic subscale address the following semiotic characteristics of scientific knowledge:

(1) Descriptive, (2) Explanatory, (3) Predictive - characterizing different aspects of reality, which knowledge reflects in difference to each other: reality as it is (descriptive), mechanisms of reality functioning (explanatory), the future of reality (predictive)

(4) Adequate-inadequate - characterizes how sufficiently correct knowledge reflects the real objects,

(5) Subjective - characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind – in opposition to being objective - having the knowledge of reality independent of the researcher mind,

(6) Polysemantic - knowledge having several meanings, capable of being understood or interpreted in two or more possible meanings) in opposition to monosemantic (knowledge having only one meaning, capable of being interpreted in only one possible way)

(7) Probabilistic - knowledge based on the idea of probability or certainty

(8) Analytical - separating knowledge of reality into parts or constituent elements, (9) Holistic - concerned with wholes or with complete systems of knowledge rather than with the analysis, or dissection into parts

(10) Profound - having intellectual depth and insight, and extending knowledge far below the surface

(11) Broad - extending the knowledge far and wide, having horizontal extent of the knowledge – in comparison with intellectual depth considered by dimension “Profound”

(12) General - characteristic of the majority of objects, applicable or dealing with universal rather than particular aspects

(13) Abstract - expressing the knowledge in a quality apart from objects, dealing with a subject matter in its abstract aspects, so called abstract science

(14) Simplistic - characterized by oversimplifying and the reduction of a scientific problems to a false simplicity by ignoring complex factors - in opposition to (15) Excessive complex - the quality of knowledge being too complex

(16) Relative to commonsense, (17) Relative to philosophy, (18) Relative to natural science, (19) Relative to social science, (20) Relative to humanities and arts, (21) Relative to medical science, (22) Relative to educational science, (23) Relative to esoteric knowledge – characterizing the degree how knowledge pertains to traditional groups of sciences (knowledge) in opposition (difference) to each other.

Items of syntactic subscale address the following semiotic characteristics of scientific knowledge:

(24) Classical - knowledge relating to an established pattern of thought and research, serving as an authoritative standard of excellence and recognized value in research endeavor.

(25) Up-to-date - knowledge including the latest information (26) Ambiguous - uncertain and obscure, not clearly expressed,

hiding the meaning through some inadequacy of expression and a lack of clear formulation due to inadequate conception - in opposition to (27) Precisely communicated – as opposite the previous dimension.

(28) Systematic - presented or formulated as a coherent body of ideas or principles, comprising a system

(29) Flexible - characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements

(30) Creative - marked by the ability of being creative in generation of new ideas

(31) Logical - capable of reasoning in an orderly cogent fashion - in opposition to (32) Intuitive knowable by intuition and having intuitive truths

(33) Concise - marked by brevity of statements, free from superfluous details

(34) Empirical - being well-grounded or justifiable by empirical data

(35) Algorithmic - relying on a step-by-step procedures for solving scientific problems and gaining a new scientific knowledge

(36) Conceptual - relying on theories and concepts, using conceptual thinking to support truths in certain difference to Intuitive and Empirical.

(37) Fundamental - dealing with general principles rather than practical application like fundamental science, serving as a basis supporting basic body of scientific knowledge

Items of pragmatic subscale address the following semiotic characteristics of scientific knowledge:

(38) Personally important - containing much significance and personal value for researcher or user

(39) Important to society -containing significance and value for society

(40) Authoritative - having power to influence and maintain a high status in society

(41) Perspective - relating to and being considered in the perspectives of society development, as knowledge promising to maintain influence for society in the future

(42) Political - involved in politics, concerned with winning and holding control over society, engaged in competition between competing interest groups or individuals for power and leadership

(43) Academic - conforming to the traditions of academy science, rather than practical significance, confined to scientific knowledge rather than to practical applications - in opposition to (44) Applied applying general principles to solve practical problems

(45) Cognitively inspiring - involving intellectual activity, stimulating cognitive interest

(46) Attractive - arousing emotional interest and pleasure, having the power to attract emotionally

(47) Comprehensible - accessible to comprehend when one can grasp the nature and meaning of ideas.

(48) Control - focusing on how to keep the things under control: to manage and influence objects, people, and society

(49) Cognitive development - helping to learn cognitive strategies and improve learning

(50) Self-developmental - focusing on how to control and self-manage one own behavior and personality

(51) Optimistic - promoting to view the events in favorable way and anticipate the favorable possible outcome and giving the people a hopeful view of the world

(52) Ethical - conforming to accepted ethical and moral standards of conduct

Method

According to these definitions we composed statements that addressed these characteristics of knowledge in application to Psychology.

This set of statements formed the Semiotic Scale of Psychology Knowledge.

To study participants’ semiotic evaluation of psychology knowledge we asked them to rate the statements from 1 (minimum extent) to 7 (maximum extent) in their reference to Introductory Psychology.

The participants were asked to evaluate: to what extent the knowledge of introductory (general) psychology can be described with certain attributes.

We administered the survey at the end of semester when they studied the course.

Participants

Students of two small liberal art colleges (Midwest of the USA) completed the survey at the end of introductory psychology class:

college one - 111 participants, college two – 85 participants.

Results

from the results we concluded pretty stable and moderately high rating (in the range 4.4 – 5.2 points on the 7 pts scale) of most semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic dimensions of Psychology knowledge.

However there are some variations depending on the nature of semiotic dimension and college. The same stability is evident in the SD (in the range 1-1.5)

The data show stable attitudes towards Psychology knowledge with some variations.

We purposefully avoid the words “positive”-“negative” in the context since the scale did not intend to judge, but only to measure.

What are good and what are bad poles for the dimensions of scientific knowledge is not evident.

Anyway we are not inclined to generalize the data obtained.

The average scores for two colleges are different in many dimensions and items that show evidence of discriminant validity.

So the main and most important result of this study is development of semiotic scale for evaluation of scientific knowledge with Psychology as a case study.

For further direction of research using the semiotic scale it can be interesting and useful to compare:

the different units of the course and textbook; the different texts; impressions of instructors and their students; the different psychology disciplines; Psychology to other disciplines in terms of their

semiotic dimensions. It may be productive to develop the similar scales for

other scientific disciplines since some semiotic dimension may differ.