Implicit and explicit knowledge - influences on action in critical situations

Basis for the presented study is the up to now not completely answered ques tion why persons differ regarding their performance in critical situations even if they do recur to a comparable explicit knowledge base. We assume th at these performance differences ground in differences in implicit knowledg e acquired through experience. For this reason 15 nurses were not only test ed regarding their explicit knowledge and its facets (action-related and th eoretical knowledge) with an half structured interview, but also their impl icit knowledge was explicated. The dependent variable was performance in a simulated critical nursing situation. Exact statistical tests were performe d to determine if successfully performing nurses do differ in the respectiv e forms of knowledge compared with less successfully performing ones. Compa risons of the groups showed no significant differences regarding the explic it knowledge whereas for implicit knowledge such differences exist. Success fully performing nurses displayed more implicit knowledge than less success fully persons which relied stronger on explicit knowledge as exhibited in t he interview. In the discussion these results are imbedded in other researc h and an outlook on possible consequences is given.