Knowledge Building Expertise: Nanomodellers' Education As An Example

Sci & Educ (2013) 22:1323–1346
DOI 10.1007/s11191-012-9550-9
Knowledge Building Expertise: Nanomodellers’

Education as an Example
Suvi Tala
Published online: 21 October 2012

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
Abstract The content of the expertise which young natural scientists try to gain by doing
science in research groups is a relatively little-explored subject. What makes learning in
such settings challenging is that a central part of the expertise is tacit. This study employs
empirical methods together with a contextualized approach and interdisciplinary cooper-
ation in order to reveal practicing nanomodellers’ (N = 10) perspectives on their knowl-
edge-building expertise, and on young scientists’ expertise education. Modelling in the
virtual world plays a major role in the science of these nanomodellers, as it increasingly
does in many fields of science. This study therefore adds to our understanding of the nature
of recent scientific knowledge building and expertise development, which can be used in
the education of the scientists of the future.
1 Introduction
What apprentice scientists learn in their education defines how they do science in the future.
Thus, the education of scientists to become experts contributes to scientific and technological
progress. A central part of the enculturation of new natural scientists takes place in
apprentice-master settings, and an important part of the knowledge they try to acquire in this
kind of setting is tacit: potential expert researchers learn about success in science by doing
science as members of research groups. What young scientists as apprentices learn of these
knowledge-building practices is a relatively little-explored subject, and is thus the focus of
this study. The study employs empirical methods in order to reveal practicing nanophysi-
cists’ perspectives on the expertise that guides their and their role models’ and colleagues’
actions in the knowledge construction and justification processes of nanophysics—and how
this expertise is learned. The experiences of both experts and apprentices (PhDs) are
examined in the study. While working in groups, apprentices primarily aim to follow experts’
ways of thinking and acting even though this is naturally not in any sense complete in
developing fields of research; the objective is that, in time, they move the methods and the
S. Tala (&)
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, POB 64, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: suvi.tala@helsinki.fi
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1324 S. Tala
fields forward. Nanophysicists work in a rapidly developing field where generative model-
ling and simulation in the virtual world plays an important role (Humphreys 2004). This
study can therefore add to our understanding of scientific knowledge building through
modelling and the development of expertise therein.
Contributory expertise (Collins and Evans 2007), which is something one needs in order
to succeed in a domain, basically rests on the knowledge and skills developed through
experience. Overall, an expert’s knowledge includes factual knowledge as well as con-
ceptual, procedural and metacognitional understanding, which (s)he synthesizes and then
merges with skills for successful action (cf. the taxonomy of knowledge by Anderson and
Krathwohl 2001). The result of this action, when based on scientists’ expertise, is new
scientific understanding, knowledge, or a means to produce them. According to the
nanoscientists interviewed in the present study, this merging of knowledge and skills for
successful research practice is in their field guided by ‘‘special insight’’ or ‘‘intuition’’. As a
practicing scientist interviewed in the study stated: ‘‘It is something I cannot describe in
words. It is taught nowhere’’.
Chemical physicist Michael Polanyi (1958, 1966) has already written about this kind of
tacit knowledge lying at the heart of contributory expertise and guiding a scientist’s actions.
He defined it as a particular quality of an individual scientist, as personal knowledge, which
cannot be made explicit: ‘‘We can know more than we can tell’’ (Polanyi 1966, p. 4).
Nowadays, tacit knowledge is also discussed as something which a group of experts share
and which can be (partly) revealed through careful analysis carried out in interdisciplinary
cooperation (Collins and Sanders 2006; Collins 2010). Because of this shared nature of
expertise it is natural that novice scientists are educated as integrated members of research
groups. Learning in such wide apprentice-master systems has been previously discussed in
other contexts (e.g., Cate and Durning 2007; Gamble 2001; Gardner 2008; Laudel and
Gläser 2008). Such education of young natural scientists, where they attain expertise by
working with experts and other apprentices, has often been mentioned as an example of an
authentic, constructive and socially motivating (Boyle and Boice 1998; Gardner 2008; Moss
and Kubacki 2007) context for learning, but it is still a poorly understood process.
When young scientists attain expertise by working for a particular research project there
is a danger that the objectives of the project dominate the educational goals. Indeed, it is
not easy for an apprentice to learn and for an expert to explain the ideas that guide the
research practices, because expert scientists’ intuitive mode of reasoning1 guides the
decision making in research groups. Thus there is a need to pay special attention to
articulating to young scientists the expertise they are gaining. Because expertise is context-
sensitive and dependent on the nature of the field in question, context-sensitive studies are
needed for research-based development of the education of new scientists. The Finnish
nanomodellers here wanted to discover and articulate their understanding of their tacit
shared ‘‘insight’’ and other mainly tacit components of their expertise, in a process of
cooperation and for educational purposes: they realize that their learning within apprentice-
master systems could be better supported on the basis of the analysis of the tacit expertise
that young scientists are attaining. Indeed, their expertise was studied as contextualized:
the practitioners were encouraged to tell about the basis of, and skills needed in, their
knowledge-building practices in exemplary situations of their research—and about learn-
ing those practices to achieve success.
1
Naturally, apprentices are also listened to and the objective is that they learn to develop good ideas, the
quality of which in any case becomes estimated against the expertise concentrated in the research group or
community.
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Knowledge Building Expertise 1325
Basically there are two kinds of tacit aspects in scientists’ expertise. Firstly, when a
scientist reaches the higher levels of expertise (cf. Chi 2006; Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986),
deep tacit understanding guides her/his intuitive grasp of situations and (s)he no longer
considers the basics.2 Thus there is a tacit component which has been learned as explicit
knowledge after which it becomes tacit. Secondly, at the heart of expertise lies a tacit
understanding based on successful epistemological and methodological ideas in practice,
which is even tacitly learned. It guides knowledge construction and justification practices
together with understanding the different interpretations of these practices. It also develops
through success reached in practice and thus is never made explicit. Young scientists are
expected to acquire an ability to maintain, interpret and develop research practices by
simply doing science in research groups (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger and Snyder
2000). Therefore the challenge of learning in an apprentice-master system is not that the
experts would like to hide something, but that part of the knowledge that young scientists
are in the process of gaining is unrecognized (cf. Collins and Evans 2007 classification of
tacit knowledge) and not explicitly discussed in the research groups.
This knowledge can in any case be revealed by collaborative practicing scientists—and
education and philosophy researchers, for example—when the practicing scientists are
highly motivated in this regard. In interviews in such collaborative settings also the
interviewed practising scientists can learn about their own field of research (Collins and
Sanders 2007). Consequently, this study aims to reveal the architecture of the tacit epis-
temology and methodology of knowledge building through nanomodelling and its asso-
ciated skills, which guides nanoscientific knowledge-building practices and is transferred
as tacit knowledge from a community of experts to successful apprentices working in the
community. Thus the collaborative method developed here and the ensuing analysis
together constitutes an endeavour to reveal the expertise needed in scientific knowledge
building for educational purposes at higher levels. Indeed, the present study increases our
understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge building at the core of the science
taught at every level of science education.
2 Scientists’ Knowledge-Building Expertise
After Polanyi, expertise has been studied in numerous contexts—from engineering to art—
and from different perspectives. It has been examined most from the viewpoints of psy-
chology and psychometry (Ackerman and Beyer 2006; Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986; Gobet
et al. 2011; Sonnentag et al. 2006) and education (Chi et al. 1981; Cianciolo et al. 2006;
Larkin et al. 1980; Verkoeijen et al. 2004). Interest in expertise and experts’ knowledge has
also been growing in sociological (Collins and Evans 2007; Evetts et al. 2006) and
philosophical theoretical and empirical studies (Collins 2010). This section points out
studies that help to clarify scientists’– and especially nanomodellers’– knowledge-building
expertise.
2
According to the favoured analysis of the growth of expertise (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986), apprentices
need explicit rules to be able to act and then follow these rules. As competence develops, experts develop
organizing principles to quickly access the particular rules that are relevant to the specific tasks at hand
(Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986; Kimball and Holyoak 2000): in time, their expertise becomes ubiquitous
(Collins and Evans 2007). This development toward an intuitive mode of reasoning is necessary for effective
practices. Nevertheless, when these ideas are not identified for new apprentices, ‘‘there easily appears a
break in communication’’ between the experts and an apprentice, as one expert interviewed in this study
explained, adding: ‘‘I mean I expect without being conscious of my expectation… then we lost time’’.
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Following work by Polanyi (1958, 1966), the development of expertise has been tradi-
tionally studied in terms of the improvement of an individual’s sensomotoric skills (Collins
and Evans 2007; Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986) or cognitive skills, such as improving one’s
problem-solving ability in structured situations: experts excel in many ways.3 Nowadays,
even more than as individual skills, expertise is discussed as a level of capacity, the
attainment of which requires that one have a large organized body of domain knowledge and
experience. Attention has been paid not only to the duration but also the diversity of expe-
rience gained. At the higher levels of expertise in particular, it is questionable whether a
direct connection exists between the years of experience in a field and the performance in that
field, but there seems to be connections between the breadth of experience and performance
(Sonnentag et al. 2006). Further, due to the contextualized nature of expertise, a variety of
studies have been done about the development of expertise in individuals working in a
community of experts and non-experts in practical fields, such as medical doctors or nurses
(e.g., Cianciolo et al. 2006; Ericsson 2007; Verkoeijen et al. 2004). Expertise is also analysed
at a general level, for example from sociological viewpoints in the recent ‘‘Third Wave of
Science Studies: Studies of Expertise and Experience’’ (Collins and Evans 2002), which has
clarified the terminology of the field and highlighted the communal nature of expertise.
Consequently, irrespective of the context of the study and the viewpoint adopted, every
approach to expertise seems to highlight the importance of both hands-on practising and
previous personal contact with experts for the acquisition of the tacit knowledge of con-
tributory expertise. With this objective in mind, organized communities of practice (Lave
and Wenger 1991) are also effective mechanisms for developing tacit knowledge (Lesser and
Storck 2001; Wenger and Snyder 2000). In science, such sharing and developing of tacit
knowledge typically means working on shared objectives, methods, instruments and objects;
thus it is quite normal that natural scientists are educated in apprentice-master systems in
authentic research contexts. There is now a need to better understand the expertise reached by
successful scientists in such contexts.
The shared tacit knowledge underlining expert scientists’ performance consists at least
of procedural and meta-cognitive ideas. The case of the TEA laser (Collins 1985) is a
classic example of how the tacit knowledge (in this case mainly procedural) needed for
experimental success cannot be transferred through the scientific literature alone. Another
example is the famous historical way to guarantee the success of the replication of an
experiment by sending material models, such as ‘‘Faraday’s motors’’ demonstrating
electromagnetism or the electric coils William Thomson sent as part of his measurement of
ohm (Baird 2004). These historical material products encapsulated the tacit procedural and
operational knowledge needed to replicate the experiment successfully. Respective
methodological tacit knowledge is naturally needed for success when using other meth-
odological approaches like modelling or theoretical ones.
To be sure, methodological practices together with the data gained are interpreted in the
conceptual frameworks that are typically developing in the same process. It is quite natural
3
Comparative studies between apprentices and experts’ problem-solving abilities have repeatedly
emphasized that it is not the amount of knowledge that differentiates experts from apprentices, but the way
in which the knowledge is organized and linked in the experts’ minds. Experts excel at seeing the features
that apprentices cannot see and choosing the appropriate strategies; thus, they can generate better solutions
to questions than can those less experienced (e.g. Chi 2006; Larkin et al. 1980; Sonnentag 1995; Sonnentag
et al. 2006 Verkoeijen et al. 2004). Experts also have more detailed meta-cognitive skills (Eteläpelto 1993)
than apprentices as well as more accurate self-monitoring skills: they are better able to detect errors and
evaluate the status of their own comprehension. Therefore the cognitive state of experts is naturally seen as
the goal of education.
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that this process appears to an expert as an iterative one, guided by the shared tacit
epistemological and methodological ideas lying at the heart of such full-blown specialists’
cognitive exceeding, which indeed become developed in such a process (cf. the iterative
nature of software engineering, Sommerville 2007).
The history of physics contains numerous famous examples of how certain adopted
philosophical viewpoints have guided physicists to success, and how other viewpoints have
prevented other physicists from interpreting observations in ways which later were estab-
lished as the best scientific explanations (e.g., Chang 2004; Darrigol 2000). Indeed, suc-
cessful physicists seem to be quite flexible in motivationally adopting (Fine 1986) the
different philosophical viewpoints needed to deal with different methodological approaches.
From the lowest to the highest levels of science education the established conceptual
framework is taught by traditional teaching–learning sequences and the methodological
skills by hands-on practices. The tacit methodological and epistemological ideas guiding
the research practices, from framing the research question to interpreting the results, are
rarely identified, analysed or discussed explicitly. Successful young scientists—or those
new to the field—adopt these tacit ideas embedded in the practices of research groups
through working in those groups. The potential to contribute to the development of
expertise on the basis of the explicit analysis of experts’ tacit knowledge has been advo-
cated by a number of scholars (Argyris 1993; Brown and Duguid 1991; Cianciolo et al.
2006; Eraut 2000; Schon 1983): tacit epistemological and methodological ideas lie at the
heart of scientist’s knowledge-building expertise and are thus worth investigating.
2.1 Expertise Guiding Knowledge Building in the Virtual World
Scientists’ knowledge-building expertise is strongly determined by the methods they use.

The methodologies employed in revealing physical reality are traditionally divided into
theoreticians’ and experimenters’ fields. Indeed, because at the core of physic is the pro-
cess where theoretical predictions are connected with experimental data (Koponen and
Mäntylä 2006), modelling and simulations have been widely used in physics for a long
time (see e.g., Keller 2003). The literature on modelling mostly considers it as deduction
from theory in order to analyse particular unknown situations, and therefore sees it as a
part, or direct continuation, of theorizing. Consequently such modelling is thoroughly
discussed where well-established theory already exists, such as hydrodynamics or con-
tinuum mechanics, which allows the derivation of a set of dynamical equations in the form
of differential or difference equations, but which are not necessarily solvable without
further modelling (e.g., Winsberg 2003, 2006).
Recent scientific studies (e.g., Humphreys 2004; Galison 1997; Merz 1999; Morrison and
Morgan 1999; Rheinberg 1997) have indicated that the perspective opened by considering
the practices of science provides a different approach to models and modelling. In practice,
the modelling and simulations4 are extensively used in knowledge building in areas which
are not (fully) understood by established theory—and this development in particular has
questioned the traditional division of scientific methods in theoreticians’ and experimenters’
fields. The development in which modelling has reached a position as the third—and indeed
4
In scientific modelling, the ‘‘running of a model’’, namely simulation, in order to study a system is often
the central concern. Modelling scientists, as they are understood in this article, do not play with ready-made
computer programmes, such as simulations illustrating scientific principles or those typically shared in
public on the Internet or used in science education. Instead, they develop the background algorithmic
programmes that generate the dynamics of the virtual environment and the models to be implemented
therein.
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central—methodological approach has taken place in many fields of natural science, and in
the humanities.
The growing importance of modelling has accelerated the discussion about the different
roles and relations of models and modelling in the sciences. The philosophically central
question of how the relations between reality, modelling and the other methods employed
are constructed is also important for expert modellers. The discussion about models in
science studies during the last decades has defined the relations between models and reality
in different ways giving them a variety of roles (Bailer-Jones 1999; Koponen 2007), which
is partly explained by the different kinds of modelling focused on by various authors. In
spite of having different perspective on models, philosophers analysing science and its
models have generally agreed that models are representations (Bailer-Jones 2003; Hughes
1997; Morrison and Morgan 1999; Suárez 1999; Giere 2004, see also Hestenes 1992 and
2010, Winsberg 2010): we gain knowledge from them because they represent target objects
in the world in some relevant respects, which on the other hand is the most essential
epistemological dimension of the use of models and modelling. Then, the typical view
launched by philosophers of science is to consider models as realistic representations of the
world, the task of modellers being to develop the models in order to sharpen this repre-
sentational relation. In interpretations focusing on different contexts of modelling, this
representational account is naturally seen in slightly different ways.
Indeed, the practitioners’ perspective that in physics models and modelling are essential
not only epistemologically but also methodologically emphasizes their role as tools of
thinking even over their role as tools of description. In recent theoretical analyses of this
perspective of scientific practice, models and modelling have been suggested to have in
many cases quite an independent and active role as mediators between different methods
(e.g., Godfrey-Smith 2006; Knuuttila 2005; Morrison and Morgan 1999). While modelling
places both theoretical as well as empirical elements into models that are then used as
cognitive tools of investigation, as generative models5 (Koponen 2007), it also creatively
bridges the conceptual reality and the real phenomena manipulated by experimentalists in
laboratories. In that respect, the generative models are freely developing tools of creative
thinking and the exploration of ideas (Koponen and Tala 2013).
Generative features also appear in modelling in fields partly based on well-known
theoretical grounds. For example, in the growing field of nanoscience, modelling in the
virtual world is of central importance (cf. Humphreys 2004). Because nanophysics is a
branch of rather conventional materials science, we have reasons to expect the traditional
clear theory-to-model relation. Nanophysics is partly based on well-known theoretical
grounds, those of mechanics and quantum mechanics, but nevertheless nanomodelers
cannot count every situation they are interested in on the basis of the established theories
only. The practices reveal that also extratheoretical elements and instrumental position has
to be included (discussed below and see Koponen and Tala 2013). Furthermore, although
the technology for experimentation in nanoscience is developing, experimentation and
detection in the nanoworld is still limited.6 Therefore modelling and simulations are
needed, for example to support the construction, controlling of and explaining of nano-
processes from which new knowledge is produced and modelling further developed (see
e.g., Vvedensky 2004).
5
Such generative modelling has many features similar to the ‘‘constructive modelling’’ and ‘‘generic
modelling’’ discussed by Nersessian (2008) (see Koponen 2007; Koponen and Tala 2013).
6
The technological abilities of experimentation in nanophysics have advanced rapidly during the last
decades and thus the amount of experimental data available to be fitted with modelling is increasing.
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In conclusion, in nanoscience practices, the development of models and simulation in

the virtual world is closely related to traditional approaches of the theoretical physical
sciences and their empirical methods of experimentation and observation. In such mod-
elling, mathematical models and their numerical solutions are constructed in particular
situations, i.e., computer simulations, in an interaction with both theory and experimen-
tation. In the modelling process, computer models and simulations then behave the same
way as in theoretical work in one respect and experimentation in another, but are not
directly derived from either, and thus are able to advance the development of both
(Dowling 1999; Morrison and Morgan 1999). Such modelling functions as a developing
link between the material and theoretical control over phenomenon: computer models
become fitted to the material models (Baird 2004) manipulated in experiments, and these
material models are then designed and constructed in a way that they fit with computer
models. The result is not only functional models supporting successful experimentation but
also new knowledge. Finally, because this takes place in a developing theoretical frame-
work (models include theoretical elements), this is also a way how the lowest levels of
models of theory7 can reach empirical reliability or adequacy (Cartwright 1999;
van Fraassen 1980). To become an intermediating expert who is able to advance the
development of both experimentation and theorizing iteratively (Dowling 1999; Morrison
and Morgan 1999) as part of generative knowledge building (Nickles 1989), young scientists
may have to learn to combine both experimental and theoretical means of negotiation.
Moreover, the interaction between theoretical and empirical realities provided by
modelling is inherently bound to our technological capacity. Thus from a technoscientific
viewpoint it can be argued that generative modelling unites the experimental control and
conceptual understanding of phenomena under study in a special way, providing an
apparent kind of ‘‘understanding by control’’, oriented toward practical skilfulness in
design and the ability to predict (Tala 2009). At the concrete level, recent modelling
typically means employing and often developing a kind of computer software, namely
‘‘coding’’. Then the products of such modelling will include not only new scientific
knowledge but also technological artefacts and knowledge, such as a functional computer
code for a model, code for its virtual environment or a combination of such previously
developed artefacts. Success in producing new knowledge also establishes the reliability of
experimental machines and computer codes included in the process. To be able to develop
such functional virtual systems or artefacts and show that they function as suggested,
young scientists must also learn some technological means of construction and justifica-
tion. Finally, the development of computer modelling extends and at the same time alters
the evidential basis of science (see Tala 2009).8
Furthermore, expertise research has previously concentrated largely on cognitive issues
associated with experts’ performance. Recently the focus has been extended to commu-
nication and cooperation as part of expertise development, because these play a central
epistemological role in current science: as part of their contributory expertise, young
scientists improve their ability to communicate and develop their ideas, activities and
7
See Giere (1988) and other semantic views on theories.
8
When the capacities of technological systems (material and computer models) give rise to the apparently
regular behaviour of the ‘‘world’’ that we express by our physical laws (Tala 2009), technoscientific nature
defines and modifies physical knowledge and the means to produce it. As a concrete example, one modeller
interviewed in this study said that ‘‘owing to the digital nature of computers, the discretized template—
which is the physical model fitted in a computer—is never the same as the original physical template which
provided the starting point.’’ Then the role of technology becomes not limited only to the methodological. It
also becomes an epistemological question.
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interpretations with modelling colleagues, their experimental and theoretical counterparts,

and others (e.g. Clancey 2006). In expertise research in software engineering, a field quite
near the domain of scientific modellers’ expertise, it has been noted that high-performing
experts spend more time and show better competencies in communication and cooperation
than moderate performers (Sonnentag 1995; Sonnentag et al. 2006). The ability to build
and maintain connections with other experts, which can be called interactive expertise
(Collins and Evans 2007), is needed in order to build connections between modelling in the
virtual world and the reality outside: only in this way can modelling finally increase the
understanding of the phenomenon under study. It may also be a way of developing indi-
vidual expertise.
2.2 Expertise for Connecting the Real and Virtual Worlds
Interactive expertise is a context-specific ability to master the language and rules of

communication, and to grasp the dominant principles of a specialist domain, which is
primarily based on young scientists’ understanding of what they are doing and why. In the
education of scientists, these two aspects of expertise, to contribute (contributory expertise)
and to interact (interactive expertise), develop in close interaction: a young scientist needs
a means to communicate his or her own ideas to be able to carry out research, and thus also
develop his/her contributory expertise. Because nanomodelling is a new field, there is no
established basis for terminology or other means of communicating innovative ideas.
To be able to build the connections to theory and experimentation through interaction,
young nanomodellers need to learn to use and also develop inter-cultural modes of com-
munication (cf. Collins et al. 2007; Ribeiro 2007; Wenger and Snyder 2000). The con-
nections between modelling and experimentation as well as modelling and theory are built
in locally organized cooperation between knowledge-building communities that have not
only different methodological approaches, but also different methodological views and
practical objectives, along with languages and cultures of communication. Galison (1997)
explains the interaction between different kinds of groups9 as a trade of ideas, interpre-
tations, models and machines. Trading can take place even though different groups have
entirely different practical objectives, because they may need each other. The basis of
trading lies in understanding the viewpoints of one’s own community, and can be facili-
tated by understanding the objectives and basis of viewpoints held by cooperation partners.
Indeed, in trading a shared language is needed:
Cultures in interaction frequently establish contact languages, systems of discourse that can vary
from the most function-specific jargons, through semispecific pidgins, to full-fledged creoles rich
enough to support activities as complex as poetry and metalinguistic reflection. (Galison 1997,
p. 783, cf. Wenger and Snyder 2000)
The nature of trading zones changes when the institutes of cooperation are established,
for example when groups of different practitioners are in permanent cooperation and even
work in the same building (Collins et al. 2007). This development can regularize the nature
of the language and other means of communication used. To reach such a state of
development in a new field, and at the international level, generations of new researchers
may need to be educated and a shared theoretical basis established. Many new young
nanomodellers will be working to develop the field toward such a shared culture.
9
He discusses this idea in the context of the interaction between engineers, experimenters and theorists
involved in the development of particle accelerators, radar and the atomic bomb.
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The understanding and interactive ability young nanomodellers gain in trading may also
help them in ‘‘selling’’ their expertise for employment in other contexts. The ability to
apply their expertise in new contexts of research is central from the viewpoint of the further
development of individual expertise: specific aspects of experience, such as its breadth and
variety, are related to expert performance (Sonnentag et al. 2006). Indeed, one’s ability to
transfer expertise, namely adaptive expertise (e.g., Kimball and Holyoak 2000) or referred
expertise (Collins and Evans 2007), may be especially important in areas such as the
software domain and scientific fields related to other fast-developing technology, where
new tools and methodologies continue to emerge and where existing knowledge and
methods can quickly become obsolete. In such rapidly developing fields we see successful
attempts to bridge different disciplines by experts acting as ‘‘brokers’’ or by producing
boundary objects transferring know-how (cf. Galison 1997; Wenger and Snyder 2000).
Young scientists today are expected to adopt the different aspects of expertise discussed
above that are needed in their field by purely doing research. It would be much easier to
develop individual expertise if young researchers better understood what they are striving
towards. This study therefore analyses, in cooperation with practicing nanomodellers, what
constitutes tacit expertise in an exemplary field, nanomodelling, how it is reached, and how
this process could be better supported.
3 Methods and Informants
The knowledge and skills of expertise can be revealed in interdisciplinary cooperation. Due
to the multifaceted character of expertise, research into its nature has employed numerous
empirical methods (see Ericsson et al. (2006) and also e.g., Collins and Sanders 2007)
varying from anthropological field studies where the researcher only observes, to ones
where informants are interviewed. The design of this study is based on familiarity with the
everyday practices of the informants10 together with the epistemologically important
questions therein. Because the research subject is essentially cognitive and epistemologi-
cal—it is mainly in the minds of the informants and contextualized in the decisions made
in their own research projects which they naturally know best—this kind of pure observing
of their practices was not enough: the informants had to be listened to. Indeed, while
discovered ideas are partly tacit, the informants must be willing to reflect their thinking as
supported. Therefore in this study, which aims to survey and then describe the tacit ideas
young researchers are adopting, the practicing scientists (informants) are ‘‘substantial’’
guides in their ongoing work and the co-operators are ‘‘analytical’’ guides supported by
questioning that reflects the thoughts and actions of the scientists (cf. e.g., Collins et al.
2007; Collins and Sanders 2007).
Indeed, cooperative researchers aiming to discover the elements of expertise by inter-
viewing should have a sufficient understanding of the context of expertise, substantial and
practical, and sufficient interactive expertise (cf. Chang 2004; Collins et al. 2007). Then, a
researcher from another field can, by plainly asking the informant whose expertise is under
study, to even ‘‘teach’’ something to the informant about her/his own field (Collins and
10
The practical conditions of education and modellers’ everyday practices are quite well-known by the co-
operators developing the questionnaire, one of whom has done such nanomodelling himself, and also by the
interviewer who works in the same institute as most of the informants. Pure observation of those practices
was therefore not included in the study even though the basis of the practices was discussed in the
interviews.
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Sanders 2007). Thus the present phenomenological case study (Cohen and Manion 1994)
was developed as a collaboration between researchers in physics, physics education and
philosophy of science. With educational objectives in mind, the study aims to discover
what constitutes the core of the expertise of nanomodellers’ knowledge building and how it
is learned? The questions presented to the practitioners during the study (see ‘‘Appendix’’)
were then constructed on the basis of the understanding provided by the theoretical
analyses on modelling and expertise discussed above.
The informants are Finnish material physicists studying nanophenomena by ‘‘realistic
simulation’’: five experts (E) and five apprentices (A).11 They have studied at the
University of Helsinki in the departments of physics and chemistry except for one expert,
who took his masters and PhD at the Moscow State Engineering Physics Institute. This
means they have studied different fields of physics– and then also mathematics and, for
example, chemistry—with other physics students before entering the material sciences for
their masters or doctoral studies. One expert has been educated as a chemist. Indeed,
another expert emphasized that too few coming to the field have coding experience; so they
must work hard to gain such technological skill and ways of thinking during their doctoral
studies. The interviewees work at the multidisciplinary University of Helsinki, in the
Department of physics and in the rather small group involved with material science, where
work altogether 18 researchers and 27 doctoral students. There they constitute the flexible
Group of computational physics.12 One expert works Aalto University, but still cooperates
with the group. Experimental work is done in the bulk of material science, but the
experimental counterparts of the simulations of the interviewees come mostly through
international interaction. Each apprentice works for a different project of the experts,
where their objective is to develop ‘‘a realistic, molecular dynamic simulation’’ for a
nanophenomenon: then they all model different nanophenomena13 in different materials
with shared method(s), mainly by a computer code developed in the group (explained
later).14
The study was contextualized in the usage of the favoured method of the interviewers,
molecular dynamic (MD) simulation. To achieve a deeper viewpoint, the informants sent
written responses and some of their publications before being interviewed. The written
11
The interviewed PhDs, here called apprentices, and the physics doctors, supervising the PhDs (experts),
all have a different number of years of experience in modelling. Thus it is supposed that the apprentices are
at different levels in their expertise development (Chi 2006; Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986; Sonnentag et al.
2006), as are also the experts.
12
About one half of the financing of their research projects is from the Academy of Finland; the rest is from
the universities, Tekes, foundations, the EU, and business.
13
Typically, one apprentice is employed in a project of one or two experts in a group. One apprentice
models the elastic features of the nanobodies, such as nanosilicaballs and carbon nanotubes, in order to
understand the experimental results indicating different features at the macro- and nanolevel. Another
apprentice models cellulose in solvents based on ion liquids in order ‘‘to see how solvent breaks the
hydrogen bonds and then compare between different solvents’’. Still another apprentice models and sim-
ulates the growth of metallic clusters. The least experienced one’s objective is to simulate an industrial
process, ‘‘explosion welding’’, in order to understand what happens there at the nanolevel. The most
experienced apprentice models metallic nanoparticles, aiming to understand how the structure of the par-
ticles changes when they are either deposited on a surface or are irradiated by ions. Indeed, he aims to
develop a potential for gold-thiol systems (AuSCH) which can be used to understand how the thiol surface
change the features of gold, for example.
14
In addition to the research work for doctoral dissertations, the apprentices are expected to take formal
courses for 60 credits (lasting about a year) according to their individual curriculum, into which they
typically include studies in material science, programming and possibly studies concerning the context of
their modelling.
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questionnaire concentrated on the shared epistemological and methodological ideas

guiding their knowledge-building processes, the skills needed in maintaining those pro-
cesses and how those skills were learned. The interviews were semi-structured (Cohen and
Manion 1994) on the basis of the interviewees’ responses to the questionnaire and their
publications. They were interviewed individually. In order to increase the validity, the
questionnaire and interviews were contextualized in the interviewee’s ongoing projects
and, indeed, the everyday practical language of physics labs and lessons was used. The
informants were encouraged to reflect on the basis of their decisions and actions in their
everyday work and ongoing projects, in order to also discover the hidden and unarticulated
part of their work—and to increase the validity. They were highly motivated in terms of
cooperating and being truthful, because they also wanted to learn and support the learning
in the group. After being interviewed, many spontaneously said that when analysing their
actions they learned new about the basis of their action, and decision making, when
carefully pondering their responses to the questionnaire and in the interview.
The transcript interviews together with the responses to the questionnaire were analysed
using qualitative content analysis (Cohen and Manion 1994; Rubin and Rubin 1995)
answering the research question ‘‘what constitutes the core of the expertise of nanomo-
dellers’ knowledge building and how is it learned?’’ With this question in mind the data
were examined to find out the typical categories of expertise to which the nanomodellers
refer: the categories that emerged were ‘the successful tacit (epistemological and meth-
odological) ideas guiding modelling in the virtual world’, ‘trading zone expertise’ and
‘applied expertise’ (which were thus discussed above on theoretical basis). There were
naturally also some mentions of the theoretical and methodological ideas and skills needed
in modelling which are explicitly taught to young modellers. All of the data were classified
in these categories and then analysed in order to find the ideas typically presented, which
was then supposed to represents the shared expertise. The apprentices’ and experts’ views
were compared.15 Indeed, where differences were found in the analysis between the
apprentices’ and experts’ views, for example between apprentices at different stages of
their education, the backgrounds were considered.
The interviewees checked the analysis of their views, which increased the validity of the
study (see Miles and Huberman 1994). It was noted that the same viewpoints emerged
repeatedly in the responses of the successful nanomodellers (reliability). The study con-
centrates on these parts of expertise that are not explicitly ‘‘taught’’ to young physicists.
The results are introduced in what follows by presenting quotations which depict typical
views of the interviewees.
4 Results: The Expertise the Young Nanomodellers’ Are Acquiring
A prerequisite for the development of expertise in scientific knowledge building is

familiarity with the established knowledge of the field and typically not-yet-established
15
As is typical in the relative approaches to expertise (Chi 2006) the experts became defined in relation to
the apprentices as the more educated (doctors in the field). While selecting such a basis of defining expertise,
it became clear that the expertise of the experts is not complete in any sense, but understanding it is a
necessary step on the apprentices’ road to becoming experts themselves—and for that they work in the
research groups. The final objective is that the young scientists will further develop the field. They may start
to do so during their doctoral studies, but still must learn the rules of the community to do it. Naturally the
apprentices also learn from their peers—and are even so guided in their group—and aspire to a similar
objective.
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shared understanding of the possible directions of the development. The nanomodellers

merge scientific and technological knowledge of different kinds, which prepares them for
action in the reality of nanomodelling. Thus, young nanomodellers need to learn about the
context: they need factual knowledge and they need to reach a very good conceptual
understanding of the basics of ‘‘physics and material physics,16 chemistry, mathematics
and metamathematics’’ (E), all of which merge in modelling: ‘‘(our) modelling is made of
different theories like a patchwork’’ (E). Indeed, it is desirable that young modellers
acquire experience on different methods so that they have a variety of possible approaches
to research problems. Furthermore, scientific knowledge merges in modelling with tech-
nological knowledge: ‘‘It is… important that one can make a workable code and can
effective programming tricks and the likely things… Another thing, which cannot be
taught, is the debugging.’’ (E). Apprentices can study this framework of their study by
reading publications, but after that, ‘‘there is no other way to learn than by hard hands-on
work. The blood, sweat and tears principle ‘‘(E). In this way, an apprentice reaches the
ability to combine the conceptual framework with methodological skills and procedural
knowledge.
When asked about the objectives of their education, the apprentices typically listed only
theoretical knowledge and the particular methods or technical skills they are practising;
according to the experts, this is not enough. Indeed, due to the quick development of the
methods and computer power, for example, apprentices should reach ‘‘an ability to learn a
variety of numeric and computational methods and programming skills’’ (E): These
technological skills become intertwined with the developing scientific understanding.
Indeed, an expert states that the most important objective is ‘‘scientific thinking’’, which
‘‘is not linked only to physics. More science, less techniques.’’ Particularly, ‘‘it is important
that one learns to know, when a model is good: that means (s)he learns to model.’’ (E) In
knowing and showing that a model function as it is assumed to function is needed both
technological and scientific means of justification.
Thus, even broad theoretical studies and programming lessons does not make an
individual a modelling expert: ‘‘One has to be technically skilful, but it is not enough…
One should also have a special insight. It is something I cannot describe in words’’ (E). For
example, another modeller explained that: ‘‘we also naturally use presumptions not
included in any theory and which have impressed themselves as deeply on our minds that
we do not see them’’. These presumptions guide modellers in fitting the two ontologically
different extremes—highly abstract theory and action with concrete material instruments—
to each other’s. The expertise the modellers need in mediating is here called trading zone
expertise: the informal, free choice and even spontaneous meetings play a central role in
this exchange. Understanding the basis of modelling together with experience gained in
trading provides a basis for developing and marketing one’s own expertise for employment
in other contexts, For individual success and scientific and technological progress, an
apprentice should also: ‘‘learn to apply what (s)he has learned in one context into other
contexts’’ (E). In what follows, these three tacit aspects of nanomodellers’ expertise:
shared ‘‘special insight’’ on the models and modelling, trading zone expertise, and referred
expertise, are introduced.
16
Basically, both quantum and classical mechanics is needed. The MD-modelling code the interviewers use
most of the time bases mostly on classical mechanics, on Newton’s equations of motion defining the
movement of the particles. Then, the modelling work concentrates typically on developing a pair potential
model starting on basis of pure quantum mechanics and then developing on. Naturally, it takes also the other
in the particular context relevant description into account.
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4.1 Epistemology of Modelling as Embodied in the Practices it Guides
Modellers’ work concentrates primarily on gaining understanding about the phenomenon

under study through ‘‘hands-on’’ manipulation of the various generative models and
developing those models, often implemented in computers. As one of the informants
mentioned, ‘‘our simulations are quite down-to-earth, but at the same time (they) make it
possible to study general phenomena’’ (E). When speaking about the creation and decision
making at different stages of a modelling process in the particular research situations they
gave as examples, every interviewer frequently referred to his or her ‘‘special insight into
modelling’’, ‘‘a sixth sense’’ or material physic specialists’ ‘‘physical intuition’’. It was said
to guide the evaluation or to convince others of the functionality of a new idea, model or
simulation being developed. The epistemological and methodological ideas underlining
this ‘‘sixth sense’’ are not discussed explicitly in education, but in time, the apprentices
learn to see the particular problems they are dealing with through the eyes of the experts;
that is, they learn to see in the particular situations what to simulate and model as well as
how to simulate and model. As an apprentice explained, ‘‘that means, when we know what
we want, we aim to produce it’’: this is ‘‘a kind of engineering’’ (A) combining creatively
technological and scientific knowledge under guidance of their (techno)scientific partly
intuitive understanding.
Apprentices’ ‘‘intuition’’ develops iteratively against the intuition of the experts with
whom they work: Experts considered it essential that they ‘‘guide personally’’ (E) and ‘‘the
older students guide younger ones’’ (E). Two apprentices described the development of
intuition as follows:
In practice, I have learned much by discussing with those who have a better understanding about it…
I cannot now point my finger to where it comes from. Intuition is only the first step I use to decide if I
accept or reject the answer I get. If I accept it, then I have to ask what the more experienced
modellers think about it, or I compare my ideas with the pieces of works of others.
The apprentices are encouraged to visit other research groups, where intuition can be
further developed on basis of understanding the different viewpoints they promote to
modelling. Also experts’ intuition develops in the dynamic scientific process respecting
both what is valued by the scientific community and individuals’ honest attempts to
understand nature: ‘‘Just by working with the issue, one reaches a great insight’’ (E). The
next step is then to apply this insight in the new contexts of research.
At the basic level, the development of special insight can be seen in the apprentices’
developing views toward models and modelling. A central question in interpreting the
modelling process and data is naturally the relation between modelling and ‘‘reality’’. At
the beginning of enculturation, the interviewed apprentices seem to have a tendency
towards overarching realism. Their views are near the traditional view: models are
understood as being deduced from a theory and modelling reaching a realistic represen-
tational relation with reality. Respectively, expert modellers emphasise other than repre-
sentational roles of models and modelling. When advancing in their expertise
development, young scientists seem to adopt the experts’ flexible, instrumental view of
models and modelling.
Finally, to some extent, all informants emphasised that: ‘‘a model doesn’t care about the
actual conditions or claim that it explains them, since the only important property of a
model is its functionality’’. An expert explained this instrumental objective by saying that:
‘‘(a model is good, if) in a certain way, in some cases it is functional in estimating certain
things’’. This instrumental approach was emphasised by the interviewed modellers more
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than the drive for realism. However, the functionality of a model is then linked to its utility
in guiding action in the real world:
[By a good model] in the case of [carbon] nanotubes, for example, we can estimate on a concrete
level how a certain number of holes weakens the tube or alters its elasticity. What makes it interesting
is that we can take into account the certain, most important aspects or the simplicity.(E)
The simplicity of models is reached for both cognitive and practical reasons. An advanced
apprentice notes: ‘‘I look for an intuitively clear model which includes the essential
(features of) processes and not much else’’. For example, with recent computer power,
researchers can simulate only with very simple models in virtual reality, which is limited
both spatially and temporally as substantially smaller than these dimensions are in the
experimental counterpart. Indeed, in many case, ‘‘a good realistic model’’ is not as a good
resemble of the real system it is assumed to represent as possible—and it may even
contradict theory: to a certain state can be said that ‘‘the only important property of a model
is its functionality’’ (A). Thus, when studying modelling in this functional line, apprentices
learn to mix moderately realistic arguments of construction and justification with
pragmatic ones, which means employing both scientific and technological knowledge and
logic. Consequently, young modellers learn to develop models on the basis of quite
instrumental and moderately realistic epistemology, in such an iterative way that finally
‘‘the models are based on both theory and experimental values’’ (A); some are naturally
closer to theoretical calculations and others closer to an experimental process. Thus,
modelling can support the development of the both traditional, limited, approaches.
4.2 The Vital Trading Zone Expertise
In connecting the conceptual and material realities, modellers are supposed to have an active
role and thus the trading zone expertise is vital for a modeller and modelling.17 In a way,
modelling relates to the theoretical world in a similar sense as instruments are related to the
material world and both kinds of instruments are purpose-built for the opposite approach.
Thus, to simplify, it can be said that the experts can use the comparison between the data
produced by these different ‘‘instruments’’ as a basis of estimating and developing on the fit
between experimentation and modelling. In practice, simple models, based on reduced
theoretical ideas, become fitted with experimentation through local, informal trading
between the groups, where the objective of modellers is to reach the vital connections to
experimentation and the objective of experimenters is to get functional explanations. In this
fitting, the different methodological approaches–experimentation, modelling and theoretical
calculations–remain independent, but become developed against each other. Indeed, it is in
the bi-directional fitting process where also the modelling becomes reasoned.
In practice, the co-operation begins even before launching a project: ‘‘We discuss with
experimenters, what can be done and what should be done’’ (E). Then, a typical origin of a
‘‘realistic simulating’’ project is ‘‘an unexpected result of an experiment’’ (E) and the inability
to explain the dynamics of the phenomenon in question: ‘‘It is a model, which explains a
particular physical phenomenon’’ (E) and thus it is a central part in modellers’ expertise to
17
Naturally, also modelling is important for experimenters. Basically, according the interviewers, their
simulations are used as the numerical counterpart of the empirical instruments, compensating for the limits
in accuracy in the experimental control in the material world: for a practical example a novice mentions that
the the nanoprocesses he models cannot be recorded by any ‘‘real-time measuring equipment’’(A). The roles
in this interaction develop along with the quick development of experimental technology and computer
technology available.
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explain. Indeed, ‘‘a good model, explains the results and also predicts something new’’ (E),
‘‘something that will be found out in experimentation in the future’’ (E, A). Then the fitting is a
two-way process: a model’s validation is also based on ‘‘the testing of models by experiment;
to be precise, the predictions made by the model are tested’’ (E). As a result, the modelling
guides the experimental process from planning the experimental setup to the interpretation of
the results, and at the same time, modelling becomes developed with this objective of guiding
in mind and it is validated by its ability to do it. Indeed, the modellers also interact with the
scientists concentrating on theoretical calculations: primarily, the models and simulation
code defining the dynamics of the virtual environment of running models, are constructed on
the basis of shared theoretical footing: only ‘‘the coarse version (of a model constructed on
theoretical basis and implemented in computer) becomes fitted with experimental data’’ by
parametization. Indeed, when there is no experimental counterpart, the modellers ask their
colleagues, concentrating on theoretical calculations, for theoretical references, ‘‘the data
gained by a deeper theory’’ (E). Finally, modelling leads step-by-step to the development of
theory.
Thus, the fitting process lies at the heart of modelling, and is based on trading of experi-
mental, modelling and theoretical data, ideas, modellers’ explanations, methodological
abilities, and resources. According to interviewers, personal connections and local contacts
play a role in this trading; for example, two apprentices mentioned informal coffee breaks as
places for learning about opportunities for co-operation, and the foundations of the modelling
projects in which they were currently engaged. Other interviewees gave examples of getting
planning direction for their research or gaining methods or data needed by using their own
connections. Also, their expertise as such seems to be a kind of merchandise; an apprentice
reported that the trading partner demanded the modellers to work with them for a short time
before provided the version of the model he needed.
By participating in local trading, young scientists can practice the necessary skills needed
in such co-operation, but it is not clear to them of what those skills consist. Basically, for the
fitting between theory and experimentation, the intermediate modellers need to understand
the basis, limits and potential of their own approach, and the basis of the experimental and
theoretical approaches. This trading zone understanding seems to develop in a modeller
through diverse experience and reflection, which the reflective and socially curious
apprentices organise by themselves. An apprentice, who has worked in both experimenta-
tion and modelling and told about numerous reflective discussions with different scientists,
were substantially better in estimating the potential of the different methodological and
epistemological approaches. Indeed, the most experienced interviewed experts seemed to
automatically reflect on their activities from a general viewpoint, while the apprentices
seemed to be considering many of the questions for the first time in the interview. One elder
expert had even read and criticised in public the views on modelling published by a recent
scientific philosopher. Nevertheless, since the common attitude among physicists is that
‘‘philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds’’ (Richard
Feynman), the results of more philosophical reflections are not discussed explicitly among
these modellers in the science labs or in the other education of the young scientists.
In addition to gaining understanding of the basis, young modellers have to learn to use
and develop the context-specific modes of communication between the different sub-
cultures, which have their own epistemologies, language and habits. In a rather new field of
study, computational nanophysics, there is no well-established language and modes of
communication. For example, simple models, provided by nanomodellers play an
important role in such communication: ‘‘What is important in the dialogue between
experimenters and theorists, is a very simple, maybe idealized model, a simple mental
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picture… ‘‘(E). These models embody the basic ideas of the phenomenon to be further
developed through trading:’’ Everyone follows that model. Probably the model is fine and
correct, and sometimes it is not, but experimenters begin to think in the terms proposed by
this ‘‘theory’’ (E). Thus, these models enable co-operation between the communities
having different practical interpretations, meanings and objectives. The models are many
times the central objects of co-operation, but naturally, other modes of communication are
also needed. According to an expert, ‘‘the reduction of the data and visualization is
important’’ (E) in communication between scientists employing different methodological
approaches: the interviewers frequently mentioned how visualization (including pictures,
graphical plots, scaling plots, etc.) is used as an epistemic tool in tailoring the qualitative
procedural similarity between the virtual and experimental processes. Visualizations guide
communication for shared understanding; ‘‘you cannot understand the phenomena, or the
structure on the basis of pure numbers’’ (E). Indeed, the interpretation starts even before
the visualization: ‘‘Of course, plenty of numerical values are always produced in experi-
mentation and one can claim that a number stands for something, but it is not true. Firstly,
comes the interpretation of the observation’’ (E) Then, the visualization enables the co-
operators to see whether ‘‘the simulation produces it correctly’’ (N, E), as observed in the
experiments, which are presented in the same format.18
In sum, a vital part of modellers’ expertise that the apprentices are attaining is the
facilitation of the co-operation between experimenters and modellers, and also with
the experts dealing with the theory providing the framework of their modelling. For this,
the young modellers need to understand the basics and limits of the entry to the world
provided by these different approaches; this understanding develops through diverse
experience and its reflection. Indeed, the intermediary modellers’ role is to develop the
modes of communication used and the epistemic objects worked with in co-operation.
Indeed, discussion with scientists coming from other fields can also give birth to innovative
ideas. A young modeller, who seemed to be exceptionally active in seeking such discus-
sions, stated: ‘‘You speak with another researcher and then suddenly, a new idea appears
in your discussion’’. This kind of interaction also develops the ability to apply expertise in
new fields, as ‘the adaptive expertise’ or ‘the referred expertise’. This ability appeared in
the responses of the nanomodellers as both tacit knowledge shared between successful
scientists, and as an individual scientist’s competence. Referred expertise is the key to both
individual success and scientific and technological progress.
4.3 Referred Expertise: The Key to Scientific and Technological Progress
A beginning apprentice uses the particular given models and methods like black boxes:
‘‘The question of how the model is derived is not an easy one and I can’t answer it. I only
use it’’ (A). Nevertheless, after writing a dissertation the apprentice should be able to
‘‘sell’’ and apply her/his expertise for employment in other contexts. At best, an apprentice
reaches the ability to extend the known possibilities of the methods:
18
An apparent example is the doctoral project of an apprentice, in which he aims to explain by simulating
why ‘‘on the basis of experimental measurements, very small balls are much harder than a macroscopic
piece made of silica’’(E) by replicating the phenomenon in the virtual world exactly in the way it was
constructed in the experimental settings. In this case, the data produced in both experimentation and
modelling can be analysed by the same method. Nevertheless, ‘‘we cannot simulate everything, or we cannot
simulate some phenomena precisely’’ (E). Even after a series of interpretations, ‘‘it is not always possible to
get the numerical values right. (Then we) can compare the generic characters or trends’’(E).
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Many interesting discoveries are made by people who already have some experience, and move from
one area to another area. They bring their methods and because it is a new area of research for them,
they just go in new directions; because they do not know what has been done before, they are not
biased and influenced by previous results.(E)
The method the interviewers employ most of the time, MD simulation, is a new and
flexible method. For the general physical basis, it is applicable to different problems:
Because the MD [= molecular dynamic simulation] is generic, when you have the interaction models
right, you can describe any material… The MD is a generic method that can be employed even in
astronomy, in which the scales used are entirely different [from the atomic scale](E).19
About the applicability in physics of the simulation code they mostly use, the developer
tells:
It is a code, which counts the interaction between atoms. With this code we can deal with metals,
semiconductors, insulators–insulators it does not represent perfectly, since there are some limita-
tions–and then hydrocarbons and soon we reach organic materials.(E)
For universal nature, the understanding of the regularities of the physical systems reached
through modelling yet only at practical level is also applicable:
When simulating another material, we have often noticed with pleasure that that we have already
learnt this when studying metals. Then we can use directly what we have learned with metals, in
order to explain the same phenomenon, say in carbon nano-tubes, and vice versa. I mean the
similarity in terms of physics.(E).
Furthermore, the modellers described how the computing algorithms, by which simulations
are implemented into computers, remains independent of the specific scientific context of
their development: this increases substantially the transferability of their methods. For
example, ‘‘the harmonic oscillator is the most generally used model in physics; it is used
nearly everywhere… This mathematical model is used because it is computationally very
undemanding and effective’’ (A). Modelling algorithms are also transferred outside
physics.20
Developing understanding of the possible transferability of a method seems to occur in a
young scientist, when (s)he engages in diverse working experiences, or when (s)he is
included in the developmental work. An apprentice, who has not yet developed diverse
experience, cannot discuss the possible application of his/her simulation outside the par-
ticular idealised case (s)he is simulating; neither can (s)he tell where (s)he could employ
the experience (s)he is gaining by working. At the other end of the spectrum is an
apprentice who has had diverse experiences and may also engaged in reflective discussions
with researchers from different fields. (S)he can say something about the basis, potential
and limitations of the methods. One such was also able spontaneously relate how he had
considered ‘‘if the old methods could be used to produce knowledge about the (poorly
known) phenomenon (in question)’’.
Moreover, for most nanomodellers–like other young scientists working in new inter-
disciplinary fields–it is not enough to be able to apply the methods one can only in the
scientific contexts. An expert explained: ‘‘The companies are interested in if people are
able to model… But it is not really modelling of physical phenomena; it is modelling of a
19
See Salmela and Nordlund 2008.
20
For example, as an example of a project with biologists an expert said ‘‘Of course we co-operate… We
(computer modellers) make methods and they know how to use them. I suggest them would this and that
idea be functional and they answer if it is a good idea or not—and how to go on, to go on in co-operation.’’
Indeed, the informal co-operation, basing on personal contacts with physicists and chemists working in other
fields, and biologists, for example, is mentioned frequently in the interviews as a source of help.
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particular process’’ (E). As a successful example of the development of referred expertise,

an expert reported that a former apprentice now simulates situations in biophysics; some
others simulate irradiation on tissue as medical physicists, and yet another one has sim-
ulated the development of stock quotations. About the latter, the expert said:
He learned to deal with a huge amount of data while working for us and tried to obtain some relevant
knowledge from it. Now he performs the same task [in a bank], indeed with models of very different
kinds.
In conclusion, to succeed after one’s doctoral project, a young scientist should gain a
wider view of the basis of the models, methods and applicability of them. In addition,
success is guided by understanding one’s expertise as a whole and how it could be applied
outside of the original contexts of attaining it. Apprentices should be supported to rec-
ognise and develop these wider possibilities during their doctoral education.
5 Conclusions and Implications
This study analysed nanomodellers’ views of their shared tacit expertise nurtured and
developed in research groups, thus increasing understanding of the knowledge building
expertise of scientists in this rather new field of research and development, where mod-
elling plays a central role. Because, young natural scientists are supposed to adopt those
ideas by plainly working in research groups, this study provides a basis for supporting the
learning of young scientists. The studied nanomodellers’ expertise is different from the
expertise gained in the fields employing a traditional method, experimentation and theory,
but it shares much in common with the numerous fields of expertise employing modelling.
Nanomodelling in the virtual world is quite an autonomous methodological approach,
which actively intermediates between experimentation and theory advancing both in the
nanofield, where these traditional approaches are limited. At the core of nanomodellers’
expertise seems to be a shared, instrumental view guiding their modelling. Indeed,
nanomodellers need a strong ‘trading zone’ expertise in order to actively intermediate
between theory and experimentation, through which modelling becomes validated,
experimentation explained and a new understanding of the phenomenon in question is
built. The flexibility of the methods and the experience gained in intermediating provides
them with a variety of opportunities for application of their expertise in other contexts as
referred expertise. Since scientific research is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary and
modelling plays a role in an increasing number of fields of study, these three aspects of
expertise can be found at the basis of scientists’ success in many fields.
The development of these central aspects of expertise can be supported in apprentice
scientists by providing them with explicit knowledge about the tacit components of
expertise and tools for reflecting on the expertise they are acquiring. These tools are a
cognitive means to analyse the activity in which they are engaged, the basis and limits of
the application of the approach used and developed in that, and, indeed, the possibilities of
the approaches employed by the (possible) co-operators. Furthermore, they need inter-
disciplinary places for discussing and sharing diverse experiences (cf. Wenger and Snyder
2000). Such practising of individual reflective ability in an interdisciplinary context also
serves to develop shared modes of communication and co-operation, namely the devel-
opment of trading zone expertise, which may also increase the understanding of the
applicability of individual expertise. These recommendations are in line with the studies
discussed in Sect. 2, where a link was noticed to exist, for example, between experts’
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performance and the variety of experience they had gained, the amount and quality of their
meta-cognition and communicative and co-operative ability.
Even plain asking questions about the objectives of the activity in which scientists are
engaged, supports reflection. Many of the nanomodellers, especially the young ones,
thanked the interviewer for teaching them about their field of study (cf. Collins and
Sanders 2007). Nevertheless, the interviewer only asked: she asked about the epistemo-
logical and cognitive processes the scientists maintain in modelling and modelling edu-
cation. Already in this way, the interviewers became guided with reflection of the
knowledge building in which they are engaged. Reflection could be as well supported
explicitly by student-centred teaching aiming explicitly for this objective. The need for
such is also recognised among the interviewees: everyone invited liked using his/her time
to participate in the study having such educational purposes.
An expert suggested: ‘‘We should have a course on the theory of scientific modelling. It
should not teach modelling techniques, but should concentrate on questions (of the meta-
level) like the ones you have just asked me (in this questionnaire and interview)’’. Such
formal teaching aiming to support the expertise development of young scientists working
in research groups, is natural to organise in interdisciplinary co-operation: in co-operation
between reflective experts of knowledge building in natural science and the experts of
analysing the nature of scientific knowledge and the expertise needed to construct it,
namely practising scientists and philosophers of science. In this way, the central analytical
points become discussed as closely connected to the scientific contexts, conceptual and
methodological practices of science: to repeat Feynman’s notion as supplemented:
un-contextualized philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to
birds. Moreover, in a course to support the reflective process in young scientists and, at
best, the development of an explicitly reflective culture in their education, it is natural to
employ reflective, discursive and peer–peer interaction methods (Boud et al. 1999).21 Such
education aiming to support the development of young scientists’ expertise working in
research groups, can also produce more empirical case studies like this: those are needed to
further understand the scientists’ knowledge building expertise, and to promote scientific
and technological progress.
Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the informants of this study and useful discussions with
Dr. Ismo Koponen, Dr. Tarja Knuuttila, Dr. Jari Lavonen, Dr. Heimo Saarikko and M.Sc. Antti Laherto
concerning the present work.
Appendix: The Questionnaire Translated into English
About the Research
The philosophy of science and technology addresses the problem of the principles of the
construction and justification of knowledge. These principles guide such things as how to
prove that a model operates satisfactorily and how to convince others. They are field-
specific and are rarely discussed explicitly. Understanding these principles helps appren-
tices to learn the field and finally become experts. Although understanding this kind of
knowledge and how it is acquired is important from the viewpoint of educational research
21
Furthermore, such a course would also guide teacher students’ developing understanding of the nature of
science and scientific knowledge in the direction that sounds recognizable also in the ears of working
scientists: this basis would guide also planning of teaching solutions supporting contextual understanding
and further studies.
123
1342 S. Tala
and the development of education, it rarely been researched in its context. The philo-
sophical notions which articulate and analyse the views of practicing researchers assist in
understanding the methods and contents. In this research project, we will map the views of
selected nanophysicists who work in one way or another with computer simulations in
order to find out how knowledge is seen to be constructed and justified in nanophysics
practices. I would like to ask you the following questions to obtain out your views about
these issues. Please, send me a brief written answer to each one, which will help me to
prepare complementary questions for the interview. I also ask that you send me two or
three of your particularly good publications or presentations concerning simulations as well
as a brief account of why you consider these to be the best. If you give examples of your
other projects in your responses, please send me the relevant publications as well.
Objectives
1. What is the research frame and objective of your research? (For example, what is
modelled and what kind of empirical results do you wish to understand?) If you have
several projects, please mention them all. Concentrating on projects connected to the
nanoworld and modelling would be appreciated.
2. Please describe your research group and your role in it.
3. Considered from a broader viewpoint, to what subject matter is your research
project(s) related? What is the significance of the projects? (In answering this, please
briefly describe how you perceive the research field you are involved in.)
4. How would you explain the importance of your research field to the public or to
funding bodies?
5. How would you explain the importance of your research field to a physicist from
another field?
6. How would you explain the importance of your research field to a physics student
interested in the field?
7. Please sketch out the methods you use.
8. What general problem-solving skills and modelling skills do you employ or achieve in
your work or what can a working student in your project can achieve? How are these
skills related to the methods you use?
Relation to Reality
1. What models or kinds of models are central to your project? In which models’ and
simulations’ development do you and your research group have a central role?
2. What is the role of simulation in your research project? (For example, what is the
relation between simulation and models? Do you develop new models or employ
already developed ones?)
3. How would you characterize the relation between the models you use, the theory,
and the empirical results? (For example, do you derive the models from the theories
or are they constructed from empirical results? How are they developed further?)
4. You may like to talk here about the differences between model and theory in your
terminology.
5. In what respect does the central model you use represent reality? (In what respect
does it not?) Please give examples of the models of different types.
6. In what respect does the central model you use, relate to the theories already
established? (In what respect does it not?) Please, give examples of the models of
different types.
123
7. In what respects are the central models you have developed or use in line with the
established theoretical knowledge and in what respects are they not? (Why?) Please,
give different kinds of examples.
8. In what respects are the simulations you have developed or use in line with the
established theoretical knowledge and in what respects are they not? (Why?) Please,
give different kinds of examples.
9. If the models or simulations you employ or have developed include characteristics
which differ from those of the real systems, why do you think these idealizations or
approximations have been created? Please, give different examples and reasons.
10. How could the model or simulation be changed if we had more effective computers
or technological development was more advanced in some other way?
11. How would you describe the way your work advances knowledge and understanding
in your research field?
Functionality (from the viewpoint of convincing researchers)
1. What characteristics make the models you have developed or use important or
interesting?
2. What increases your confidence and how do you increase the other researchers’
confidence in the functionality and reliability of a model or a simulation method you
employ?
3. How do you convince other researchers in your field that your interpretations of the
results from the model or simulation are correct?
4. What other means are used to make sure that the simulations function and the results
have been interpreted in the right way in your research area?
5. What are the objectives of your or your postgraduates’ researcher education? (For
example, having completed this education, what should you/they be able to do, what
skills should you/they have and to what kind of tasks should you/they be able to apply
these skills?)
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Knowledge Building Expertise: Nanomodellers' Education As An Example

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Knowledge Building Expertise: Nanomodellers' Education As An Example

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Sci & Educ (2013) 22:1323–1346

Knowledge Building Expertise: Nanomodellers’

Published online: 21 October 2012

2 Scientists’ Knowledge-Building Expertise

2.1 Expertise Guiding Knowledge Building in the Virtual World

Scientists’ knowledge-building expertise is strongly determined by the methods they use.

In conclusion, in nanoscience practices, the development of models and simulation in

interpretations with modelling colleagues, their experimental and theoretical counterparts,

2.2 Expertise for Connecting the Real and Virtual Worlds

Interactive expertise is a context-specific ability to master the language and rules of

3 Methods and Informants

questionnaire concentrated on the shared epistemological and methodological ideas

4 Results: The Expertise the Young Nanomodellers’ Are Acquiring

A prerequisite for the development of expertise in scientific knowledge building is

shared understanding of the possible directions of the development. The nanomodellers

4.1 Epistemology of Modelling as Embodied in the Practices it Guides

Modellers’ work concentrates primarily on gaining understanding about the phenomenon

4.2 The Vital Trading Zone Expertise

4.3 Referred Expertise: The Key to Scientific and Technological Progress

particular process’’ (E). As a successful example of the development of referred expertise,

5 Conclusions and Implications

Appendix: The Questionnaire Translated into English

About the Research

Cartwright, N. (1999). The dappled world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Humphreys, P. (2004). Extending ourselves. New York: Oxford University Press.

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