Abstract
This paper reports findings from a study designed to gain broader understanding of sensemaking activities using theData/FrameTheory as the analytical framework. Although this theory is one of the dominant models of sensemaking, it has not been extensively tested with a range of sensemaking tasks. The tasks discussed here focused on making sense of structures rather than processes or narratives. Eleven researchers were asked to construct understanding of how a scientific community in a particular domain is organized (e.g., people, relationships, contributions, factors) by exploring the concept of “influence” in academia. This topic was chosen because, although researchers frequently handle this type of task, it is unlikely that they have explicitly sought this type of information. We conducted a think‐aloud study and semistructured interviews with junior and senior researchers from the human–computer interaction (HCI) domain, asking them to identify current leaders and rising stars in bothHCIand chemistry. Data were coded and analyzed using theData/FrameModel to both test and extend the model. Three themes emerged from the analysis: novices and experts' sensemaking activity chains, constructing frames through indicators, and characteristics of structure tasks. We propose extensions to theData/FrameModel to accommodate structure sensemaking.
Highlights
Exploring sensemaking, i.e., how people make sense of problems, sheds light on the development of a repertoire of skills to deal with novel situations
This paper investigates structure sensemaking in experimental conditions, by studying how academics gain an understanding of a scientific community structure
We report on factors that will help support sensemaking of structure tasks: which D/F sensemaking activities were manifested in the process of making sense of such tasks, the sequence of those activities, and how participants constructed their initial frames
Summary
I.e., how people make sense of problems, sheds light on the development of a repertoire of skills to deal with novel situations. Studies by Russell, Stefik, Pirolli, and Card (1993), Dervin (1999), Pirolli and Card (2005), and Klein et al (2007) have been widely used to explain how people interact with information and make sense of a problem situation. These studies present a theoretical explanation of the processes people go through to understand narratives or processes. Intelligence analysts may explain a variety of phenomena by reconstructing sequences of events and their causal relationships (Pirolli & Card, 2005)
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