The basic research dilemma of the present study relates to the assumption that every individual can learn, not based on a personal innate intelligence but what and how a person learns to acquire intelligence. The investigation involved developing an instrument to detect the trait of basic knowledge through knowing factors that form a student’s knowledge preference. Furthermore, the study attempted to analyze the association between knowledge preference and the student’s nurturing culture and environmental influential factors. The assessment of tacit knowledge is to gain information that has been influent student’s learning formally or informally. Student early characteristics of the knowledge learning preference can be derived from different sources of knowing, for instance, the biological heredity procession in family, language, thinking process, perception, and frames of thought. A test named the Knowledge Preference Test was developed, and it consisted of 50 items. It statistically received a reliability coefficient of 0.91. The study participants included 2 017 secondary school students in Thailand. The study found significant association patterns among knowledge preference, student biological and cultural status, and some areas of student achievement. Key words: basic knowledge, biological matrices, cultural matrices, learning styles, pedagogical epistemology of education, performative knowing, qualitative knowing, quantitative knowing.