TY - JOUR TI - On the social epistemological nature of questions DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T36Q20DB PY - 2016 AB - If “information” is a central concept for library and information science, then “questions” are fundamental, for information “informs” relative to the question. But research focusing on questions as a central theoretical concept has been stymied by the paradox of the question, which observes that in order to ask one must know enough to know what one does not know (Flammer, 1981). This dissertation proposes that this paradox results from the limitations of the cognitive approach to questions as indications of individual information need, and that the paradox can be resolved by reframing questions as social epistemological tools of inquiry within knowledge domains. The questions posed by three knowledge domains – neuroscience, literature, and computer engineering – on the common topic of “memory” are analyzed in order to investigate how the domains’ question formulations compare and what the comparisons convey about how to answer and the assumptions upon which question and answer are constructed. A method is developed for identifying the implicit questions that motivate and organize scholarly inquiry by analyzing dissertation abstracts as knowledge products of inquiry. The comparative question analysis of neuroscience, literature, and computer engineering dissertations’ question formulations about “memory” supports the proposition that knowledge domains ask different questions and ask them differently. What they ask, the content of their questions, communicates the indeterminate epistemic situation that each domain has of memory, while the mode of presentation of the question, its form, conveys the epistemic structure of inquiry and the production of knowledge. A social epistemological model of domains’ question formulations is developed that proposes that question content reflects domain ontologies, question form reflects domain epistemologies, and determinations of question relevance reflect domain sociality, which model has implications for document relevance, question negotiation, information retrieval design, and inquiry-based learning. KW - Communication, Information and Library Studies KW - Memory KW - Information retrieval LA - eng ER -