Faculty of Nursing, Third Floor Clinical Sciences Building, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Implement Sci. 2008 Nov 13;3:49. doi: 10.1186/1748-5908-3-49.
It has been argued that science and society are in the midst of a far-reaching renegotiation of the social contract between science and society, with society becoming a far more active partner in the creation of knowledge. On the one hand, new forms of knowledge production are emerging, and on the other, both science and society are experiencing a rapid acceleration in new forms of knowledge utilization. Concomitantly since the Second World War, the science underpinning the knowledge utilization field has had exponential growth. Few in-depth examinations of this field exist, and no comprehensive analyses have used bibliometric methods.
Using bibliometric analysis, specifically first author co-citation analysis, our group undertook a domain analysis of the knowledge utilization field, tracing its historical development between 1945 and 2004. Our purposes were to map the historical development of knowledge utilization as a field, and to identify the changing intellectual structure of its scientific domains. We analyzed more than 5,000 articles using citation data drawn from the Web of Science. Search terms were combinations of knowledge, research, evidence, guidelines, ideas, science, innovation, technology, information theory and use, utilization, and uptake.
We provide an overview of the intellectual structure and how it changed over six decades. The field does not become large enough to represent with a co-citation map until the mid-1960s. Our findings demonstrate vigorous growth from the mid-1960s through 2004, as well as the emergence of specialized domains reflecting distinct collectives of intellectual activity and thought. Until the mid-1980s, the major domains were focused on innovation diffusion, technology transfer, and knowledge utilization. Beginning slowly in the mid-1980s and then growing rapidly, a fourth scientific domain, evidence-based medicine, emerged. The field is dominated in all decades by one individual, Everett Rogers, and by one paradigm, innovation diffusion.
We conclude that the received view that social science disciplines are in a state where no accepted set of principles or theories guide research (i.e., that they are pre-paradigmatic) could not be supported for this field. Second, we document the emergence of a new domain within the knowledge utilization field, evidence-based medicine. Third, we conclude that Everett Rogers was the dominant figure in the field and, until the emergence of evidence-based medicine, his representation of the general diffusion model was the dominant paradigm in the field.
有人认为，科学和社会正处于科学和社会之间的社会契约的深远重新谈判之中，社会正成为知识创造的一个更为积极的合作伙伴。一方面，新的知识生产形式正在出现；另一方面，科学和社会都在经历着新知识利用形式的快速加速。自第二次世界大战以来，支撑知识利用领域的科学也呈指数级增长。对该领域几乎没有深入的研究，也没有使用文献计量方法进行全面分析。
本研究组使用文献计量分析，特别是第一作者共被引分析，对知识利用领域进行了领域分析，追溯了其在 1945 年至 2004 年间的历史发展。我们的目的是绘制知识利用领域的历史发展图，并确定其科学领域不断变化的知识结构。我们使用从 Web of Science 中提取的引文数据对 5000 多篇文章进行了分析。检索词是知识、研究、证据、指南、思想、科学、创新、技术、信息理论和使用、利用、接受的组合。
我们提供了该领域的知识结构及其在六十年间的变化概述。直到 20 世纪 60 年代中期，该领域才发展到足够大，可以用共被引图来表示。我们的研究结果表明，从 20 世纪 60 年代中期到 2004 年，该领域经历了快速增长，并且出现了反映不同知识活动和思想群体的专门领域。直到 20 世纪 80 年代中期，主要领域都集中在创新扩散、技术转让和知识利用上。从 20 世纪 80 年代中期开始，速度缓慢但后来迅速增长，第四个科学领域——循证医学出现了。该领域在所有十年中都由一个人，即 Everett Rogers，和一个范式，即创新扩散所主导。
我们的结论是，社会科学学科处于一种没有公认的原则或理论指导研究的状态的观点（即它们处于前范式阶段）不能被这个领域所支持。其次，我们记录了知识利用领域内一个新领域的出现，即循证医学。第三，我们的结论是，Everett Rogers 是该领域的主导人物，并且在循证医学出现之前，他对一般扩散模型的代表是该领域的主导范式。
