Elasticity of Knowledge in Communication: A Case of the Teacher and Student Interaction

Lack of knowledge makes a barrier for human communication. Similarly, a poor quality of knowledge of the communicating parts also impairs effectiveness of communication. In this paper, the elasticity of knowledge is proposed to be viewed as an aspect of its quality. Only the propositional knowledge on some subject is considered. The simplest form of its representation—a list of concepts—is viewed. Knowledge elasticity is defined in terms of the response sensitivity of the communicating parts to the change in a message. In particular, a question and an answer are viewed as the messages; the change of answer in response to the change of question is considered. The idea of the knowledge elasticity in communication might be compared to the idea of elasticity applied in economics (e.g., elasticity of the supply and demand). A process of the teacher and student communication is considered in terms of elasticity in more details.