From the great church to the Grand Mosque, Hagia Sophia: A study to verify tour guides' "Encrypted knowledge"

This study aims to determine the uncommon knowledge about Hagia Sophia amongst tour guides; to find out the references of the knowledge and how they are used; to detect the views of the academics and the scientific findings about the knowledge; to determine the level of awareness related to the knowledge amongst tour guides; to propose the necessary conceptual models and concepts. Qualitative and quantitative methods were both used in the study and embedded design was executed as a mixed method desing. 7 tours were observed in Hagia Sophia, 42 tour guides were interviewed, 15 academics were asked for their views about the findings and the literature was reviewed to evaluate the findings. 419 tour guides were asked for their level of awareness related to the knowledge. NVivo 12 and SPSS 22 were used and descriptive, content and frequency analyses were executed to analyse the data. The findings point out 77 knowledge expressions perceived as uncommonly known by the tour guides. According to the views of the academics and literature review, 26 out of 77 expressions were confirmed in scientific terms. 8 out of 26 knowledge expressions were determined as less-known amongst tour guides. Evaluating scientific confirmation and the references of 77 knowledge expressions with the ways that tour guides gain and use them, "The Conceptual Model of Tour Guides' Knowledge about Hagia Sophia" was developed. Furthermore, the concept of "Encrypted Knowledge" was proposed to define the knowledge uncommonly known by the members of the profession.