Definition
In aviation instruction, the recognized origins from which knowledge is acquired and validated. These are commonly grouped into five categories: authority (accepting information from a credible source), experience (knowledge gained through direct personal involvement), reasoning (deductive or inductive thinking from known facts), intuition (knowing something without conscious reasoning), and the scientific method (knowledge gained through systematic observation, hypothesis, and testing).
Plain English
The different ways people come to know things. In teaching pilots, instructors recognize that students learn from trusted sources, from doing, from thinking it through, from gut feel, and from tested evidence — and good instruction draws on all of them.
Context Anchor
Seen in the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook when discussing how learners acquire knowledge and how instructors should present information so it can be understood and used.
Derivation
Source comes from an old word meaning a spring or starting point, like the place water begins. Knowledge comes from older words meaning to know or recognize. Together, the phrase points to the starting points from which a learner’s understanding develops.
Why Pilots Care
An instructor who understands where a student's knowledge actually comes from can spot weak spots — for example, knowledge accepted on authority but never tested in practice, or intuition that hasn't been backed up by reasoning. This helps build pilots whose understanding holds up under pressure.
Intuition Check
Do not read this as only meaning books or official references. In this instructor context, a source of knowledge can also be experience, demonstration, observation, practice, or feedback.
Example Sentence 1
When planning a lesson, the instructor considered which sources of knowledge the student was relying on most, and noticed she leaned heavily on authority but had little hands-on experience.
Example Sentence 2
By reviewing multiple sources of knowledge, the new pilot combined what they read with what they observed during preflight inspections.