What comes to mind when we are asked about our field

“Select the fields closely related to your current work.” When we are asked this question, which parts of our work do we bring to mind?

I studied education and now work in data analysis. When I try to answer this question, I do not immediately settle on a single way of looking at my work. Should I name the knowledge that helps me understand the subject I am analyzing? The statistics and computing I use to process the data? Or the education background that informs how I frame my questions? Each has a connection to what I do.

Thinking about tasks and decisions brings to mind the knowledge I use. Thinking about the subject matter or industry brings to mind what my work concerns. Thinking about what I have studied brings to mind the knowledge I draw on as a foundation. Even the same person might choose different words depending on which aspect of their work they attend to.

There is another step: relating what comes to mind to the choices provided. Someone may find a name that fits their experience closely, or choose a term that seems to come nearest. By the time a field has been selected, a person’s understanding of their work and their interpretation of the words have come together.

The survey responses cannot tell us directly what each person was thinking. In this analysis, we have not established how long they spent answering or where they hesitated. Even so, might the fields they selected offer clues to how they understood the relationship between their work and their knowledge?

When I look at a line in the network, I wonder what situation at work the people behind it had in mind. I began by looking at the names of fields. Gradually, I found myself asking how people understand their own work.

What situation would I think of if I were answering? Returning to the diagram with that question, I find that the same line can invite a slightly different kind of attention.

Open the field network