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AbstractThis article develops a new application of the concept of Impostor Phenomenon (IP) to entire organizations, as opposed to individuals, and outlines the ways in which library environments may be particularly susceptible to experiencing IP. Considering organizational challenges through the lens of IP may help libraries to overcome perceived obstacles and better celebrate collective successes. The authors use the mechanism of Organizational Anthropomorphism (OA) alongside sensemaking and systems thinking to develop the concept of Organizational Impostor Phenomenon (OIP), and then provide a practical guide for identifying possible signs of OIP and introduce strategies to address OIP in the library setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the sensemaking experiences of expatriate workers in Japan as they assimilate into their organizations. Data were collected through a series of 23 semi-structured interviews, with participants ranging from one to twenty years' experience living and working in Japan. Expatriates made sense of feelings of inclusion, strong relationships with other expatriates, and special accommodations in the Japanese workplace, which helped them integrate into their organizations. These socialization experiences led participants to stay with the organization. However, when expatriate workers felt isolation or experienced inflexibility in their organization, they indicated no intention to stay. This study provides valuable insights to the literature of organizational socialization and sensemaking by adding the unique experiences of expatriate workers in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the complex realm of ethical decision making, organizations are increasingly developing comprehensive ethical frameworks as guides. These frameworks prescribe ethical principles and decision-making processes to steer organizational actors toward addressing the elusive question of "what is the right thing to do?" in specific situations. However, the interplay between these prescriptive frameworks and collective processes of ethical sensemaking remains underexplored. Based on an extensive qualitative study within publicly funded healthcare organizations, we examine how organizational actors, confronted with the challenge of making exceptional funding decisions, enact an organizational ethical framework. Our findings reveal the manifold ways through which such a framework both streamlines ethical sensemaking and induces new and unexpected interpretive challenges. These challenges generate ethical equivocality, which decision makers seek to reduce through particular sensegiving interventions, and, on occasion, through problematizing the abstract principles prescribed by the framework, based on what is intuitively felt right in situ. We contribute to the literature by developing a conceptual model of three distinct modes in which organizational actors enact the prescriptions of an ethical framework. Our article sheds new light on the unintended consequences of using organizational ethical frameworks in real-world ethical deliberations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how women and men appraise and interpret their experiences of cyberbullying at work and how they respond to such behaviours within a gendered cultural space, using the theory of sensemaking. Within the interpretive research paradigm, data was collected through in-depth, in-person interviews from 10 male and 25 female employees who had experienced cyberbullying. The findings indicated the similar and different ways that sense was made by men and women employees about their cyberbullying experiences. While making sense of cyberbullying experiences has been a very social endeavour for women, it has been a relatively private and individual process for men. Further, women had been more assertive and had relentlessly attempted to clear their image and regain their fractured identities as respectable women, while men mainly had been passive in trying to protect their fractured identities as good performers. Further, gender role stereotypes and gender scripts appeared to have influenced the sensemaking process and the participants' reactions. This article contributes to the limited literature on cyberbullying at work and develops existing understandings of how men and women understand and react to cyberbullying experiences in a gendered cultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What constitutes meaningful work in contexts associated with routines and low-skill work, such as grocery stores? And how do workers contribute to making their work meaningful in such contexts? We expand the conception of meaningful work beyond meaning in terms of significance found in the job crafting literature. Employing a phenomenological sensemaking perspective on data material combining participatory observations in a grocery store and in-depth interviews with employees, we find that store workers continuously engage in work aimed at maintaining the technical material, and social order of the store, that is ongoingly ‘micro-disturbed’ by customers who, e.g., pick groceries from shelves, ask for assistance and sometimes shoplift. Sensitized by this phenomenological sensemaking perspective, we also demonstrate how this ‘maintenance work’ manifests as cognitive and behavioral (practical) crafting and clarify their intertwined nature, a previously unresolved conceptual puzzle in the job crafting literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School systems have increasingly turned to continuous improvement (CI) processes because traditional school improvement plans (SIPs) have resulted in neither reaching set goals nor maintaining performance in challenging times. Improvement science is one way of enacting CI that combines CI with networked improvement to encourage educational equity and build organizational resilience. This study examines the efforts of a school district in the United States to use improvement science to transition their static SIPs to a dynamic process in their underperforming schools. Using a case study design with observations and interviews, we find several sensemaking mechanisms acted as mediators between organizational learning and authentic improvement science implementation. The complexity of improvement science often inhibited sensemaking given time and resource constraints before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to participants often reporting improvement science as too inefficient for their needs. Schools that more successfully integrated improvement science into SIPs saw the value of a systematic approach to SIPs, had interest in distributed leadership, and saw improvement science as advancing equity. This study provides insight into the utility of improvement science as a tool to build organizational resilience as part of school improvement while documenting the many difficulties school improvement teams have in shifting away from static school improvement practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the transformation of information security induced by the Jericho Forum, a group of security professionals who argued for a new 'de-perimeterised' security model. Having focused on defensive perimeters around networks, early 2000s information security faced a growing set of pressures: the maintainability of firewalls given increasing traffic volume and variety, the vulnerability of interior network domains, and the need to cope with and enable new working arrangements and ways of doing business. De-perimeterisation was a radical rethinking of the nature of security and created the conditions for the rise of 'Zero Trust' architectures. This shift has radical implications for the architectures of digital infrastructures that undergird many aspects of contemporary life, the risks to which people and societies are exposed, and the nature of work and business in a digital economy. We develop a semiotic analysis of the Jericho Forum's interventions. Using insights from material semiotics, security theory and the theory of narrativity, we argue that de-perimeterisation can be understood as a shift in security logic, or, a shift in how security can (be made to) make sense. We examine a cluster of images used by the Jericho Forum, and analyse how they challenged the coherence of perimeter-based thinking and provided the materials for constructing a new model. We argue that a focus on the narrative dimension of security provides a window into fundamental semantic transformations, reciprocal historical relations between semantics and technical change, the agencement of security technologies, and determinations of value (what is worth securing). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vision communication (VC) is an important way for leaders to express their ideas about a blueprint of the future to convince employees that their work is valuable and meaningful in total quality management. This research studies the influence of vision communication (VC) on quality performance (QP) through the mediation of total employee involvement (EI) and the moderation of leader support (LS). With the use of Smartpls 3.0, the collected data based on 2996 samples in Shanghai were used to analyze the various constructs. The results show that both VC and EI affect QP and should be influenced by LS. EI was found to partially mediate the relationship between VC and QP. The results also demonstrate that EI can positively affect improvement in QP via stronger LS and that high-level employee involvement is positively associated with quality performance when leader support is high (vs. low). This research can be inferred as one of the very limited empirical analyses that explored the mediating impact of EI on VC and QP. In the quality management (QM) field, the exploration of the moderating effect of LS on the mediation of the EI between VC and QP can be viewed to be a significant theoretical finding. The findings will be instrumental in assisting managers and administrators in understanding the significance of vision communication and leader support in quality management practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonprofit organizations frequently engage in partnerships with profit-oriented businesses to fulfill their goals and social mission. Although nonprofit-business partnerships can benefit both parties, they are a potential source of intra-organizational controversy and conflict, especially when social objectives clash with business interests. An increasingly recognized risk of nonprofit-business partnerships lies in organizational identity threats. Adopting a sensemaking perspective, we investigate how nonprofit members make sense of nonprofit-business partnerships and how these appraisal processes influence whether they perceive these inter-organizational partnerships as organizational identity threats. Our qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews and shows that nonprofit members' evaluations of partnership congruence (i.e., the perceived fit of a partnership with members' organizational identity expectations) and partnership relevance (i.e., the perceived meaning of a partnership for an organization's identity) influence whether they perceive partnerships as organizational identity threats. In doing so, we extend research on organizational identity threats (and opportunities) of nonprofit-business partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, studies of sensemaking typically focused on seasoned practitioners, and there is limited understanding about how sensemaking takes place in start-ups that are run by novice entrepreneurs. Drawing on a case study of a biotechnology firm in China, we investigate how three novice entrepreneurs were able to transcend liabilities of newness and smallness by drawing on guidance from internal and external stakeholders. We develop a grounded model of entrepreneurial sensemaking through three distinctive phases of collective improvisation, collaborative selection, and iterative refinements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do followers' reactions to perceived paradoxical leader behavior (PLB) differ? To answer this question, we draw from self-regulation theory and argue that making sense of a paradoxical leader's seemingly contradictory behavior can pose a challenge for followers and requires specific cognitive traits and abilities that enable them to navigate such complex and dynamic environments. We propose that followers who lack these cognitive traits and related abilities find it more difficult to make sense of and navigate their paradoxical leader's behavior, thereby perceiving them as behaviorally unpredictable. This, in turn, impairs followers' self-regulation when working with such leaders, and leads to lower well-being. Conversely, followers endowed with appropriate cognitive traits can make sense of PLB and thrive in these environments. To test our propositions, we conducted two multi-wave field studies. In Study 1, we examine the role of followers' trait cognitive flexibility in interpreting PLB; whereas Study 2 explores the role of followers' trait self-regulation. The findings from these studies support our hypotheses, with an important implication: the efficacy of PLB may not only solely depend on a leader's ability to enact these behaviors but also on their followers' ability to interpret and make sense of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of 'mommy drinking' or 'wine mom' culture, popularized by social media and capitalized upon by mommy drinking merchandise and female-branded alcohol, coincides with the intensive demands and pressures of modern mothering. Using a sensemaking framework, this study examined how mothers made sense of mommy drinking culture. Through 21 in-depth interviews, findings illustrate that mothers made sense of drinking culture in five main ways: de-alignment with suburban mommy drinkers; as a product of cultural lack of support for mothers; a response to the stress of motherhood and expectations of perfectionism; normalized yet polarized; and a cover for problem drinking. Participants were very aware that mommy drinking can divide and disparage mothers and draw attention from the very real systematic and structural problems disadvantaging mothers, often prompting them to drink to cope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connectivity expectations, the experience of being expected to be technologically connected to work during non-work hours, can pose challenges for employees working in a global environment. This study employs the sensemaking framework to examine how global team members and leaders negotiate these expectations and how they reflect in team members' work–life boundary management. The data consists of 55 in-depth interviews with employees working in nine different teams in a global organization. Team members collaboratively made sense of connectivity expectations within the team, while team leaders engaged in sensegiving to influence team members interpretations. Sensemaking was reflected in team members’ work–life boundary management as cocreated connectivity rules enabled them to disconnect from work. Team leaders’ sensegiving allowed work–life boundary adjustments, creating a supportive culture. The study makes theoretical and practical contributions to sensemaking in global work by emphasizing its communicative nature and its reflection on employees’ boundary management and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we present the results of our study of knowledge in the actor-network of snow avalanche forecasters and observers in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. Our study aimed to understand how observers and forecasters make sense of snow conditions and snow avalanche risks. To do so, we conducted empirical investigations, which included interviews with key observation, forecasting, and decision-making actors in Longyearbyen's risk governance system and autoethnographic participatory observation by the first author during the 36 months they worked closely with several informants in Longyearbyen. We draw on perspectives from literature on sensemaking, sensework, and tacit knowledge to conceptualize the modus operandi of observers and forecasters in a manner that allows for generalization to contexts beyond snow avalanche forecasting in Longyearbyen. We find that avalanche-related knowledge construction is highly dependent on the experiences of the observers from their non-professional interaction with the local topography and snow as part of their leisurely activities. Further, social relations and communication among observers and forecasters are essential in knowledge construction. Based on the different processes and resources entering the knowledge construction, we describe three dimensions of local knowledge involved in snow avalanche forecasting: situated, social knowledge; embodied knowledge; and synthetic knowledge. We elaborate on these dimensions of knowledge and discuss implications for the development and administration of avalanche warning systems in contexts characterized by a high degree of transience and change in phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a decade passing since the release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), it is timely to reflect and consider the extent to which the promise of science teaching and learning that values and centers learners' varied epistemologies for scientific sensemaking has been realized. We argue that this potential, in part, lies in the hands of our science education research community becoming aware and intentional with how we situate learners' language-related resources and practices in our work. Hoping to achieve a more inclusive and expansive future where science is for and by all—re-imagining what is possible in science education—we propose science education research move toward a language for science perspective. When taking up this perspective, researchers center the diverse ways that learners adopt and draw upon wide-ranging language resources and practices to explore phenomena, engage in scientific sensemaking and express evolving understandings about our natural world. In this commentary, we describe how we conceptualize a language for science perspective and why we believe such a perspective is critical for carrying out transformative equity-oriented research. We also illustrate one way that this perspective might be taken up, specifically in the context of science education research that integrates translanguaging theory and pedagogy to explore multilingual learners' scientific sensemaking experiences. Though our commentary is framed within the context of realizing reform-oriented science teaching and learning in the USA, the argument we make is central to the discipline of science and thus is relevant for science education research conducted across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sensemaking provides a compelling account of how meaning emerges by theorizing the organizational enactment of order. In this paper we question the underlying assumption that making sense is equivalent to ordering. We draw from Hannah Arendt's work to argue that restricting sense to ordering as a means of addressing practical concerns is limiting, and even dehumanizing, and that the most profound forms of sense may emerge from disrupting rather than restoring order. In questioning the intimacy between sense and order, we also question the commonsense view that organization seeks practical settlements, certainty and reliability. Following Arendt, we pursue the question of what it means to organize for plural opinion-making, a condition she conceptualizes as sensus communis. The upshot is to flip sensemaking on its head: rather than meaning being generated through organizing, and certain types of disruption merely triggering it, sense is made through disruption, with certain types of organizing enabling it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's social and political movements against dominant Western narratives call for a re-contextualization of cultural heritage (CH) toward inclusivity, multiperspectivity, and sensemaking. Our work approaches this challenge from a Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) perspective, questioning how HCI approaches, tools and methods can contribute to CH re-contextualization. Through collaborative reflection on our research practice, we identified four diverging case studies highlighting the different roles of HCI and its increasing entanglement with CH. Case studies 1–3 focus on HCI as a medium for CH, case 4 on digital CH, and thereby on the HCI–CH entanglement. Our reflections contribute to CH re-contextualization by highlighting the need for co-design and slow design approaches, the role of HCI technologies in preserving, communicating, and shaping CH, and open questions and challenges related to the increasing HCI–CH convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The authors study how cloud adoption decision making unfolds in organizations and present the dynamic process leading to a decision to adopt or reject cloud computing. The authors thus complement earlier literature on factors that influence cloud adoption. Design/methodology/approach: The authors adopt an interpretive epistemology to understand the process of cloud adoption decision making. Following an empirical investigation drawing on interviews with senior managers who led the cloud adoption decision making in organizations from across Europe. The authors outline a framework that shows how cloud adoptions follow multiple cycles in three broad phases. Findings: The study findings demonstrate that cloud adoption decision making is a recursive process of learning about cloud through three broad phases: building perception about cloud possibilities, contextualizing cloud possibilities in terms of current computing resources and exposing the cloud proposition to others involved in making the decision. Building on these findings, the authors construct a framework of this process which can inform practitioners in making decisions on cloud adoption. Originality/value: This work contributes to authors understanding of how cloud adoption decisions unfold and provides a framework for cloud adoption decisions that has theoretical and practical value. The study further demonstrates the role of the decision-leader, typically the CIO, in this process and identifies how other internal and external stakeholders are involved. It sheds light on the relevance of the phases of the cloud adoption decision-making process to different cloud adoption factors identified in the extant literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students bring with them rich cultural and linguistic ways of knowing and communicating when engaged in figuring out explanations of phenomena. However, it is a challenge for teachers to support bi/multilingual learners in language-intensive science and engineering practices when they don't share a common language. When we position students' bi/multilingualism as an asset rather than an obstacle, we can support bi/multilingual students' equitable sensemaking. To support bi/multilingual learners' equitable sensemaking, we offer two tools: language surveys and the multiple ways of communicating strategies sheet. We describe how a teacher (second author) used these resources to adapt an investigation about air resistance and contact forces for his bi/multilingual students. The tools and examples provided can help educators better understand their students and make principled changes to science instruction, to expand how we use language in science. We hope the tools aid teachers in this challenging work but also reframe how educators see what students are saying and doing as assets for developing their ideas and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational innovation has received significant attention in contemporary policy debates. Many countries and regions have initiated comprehensive reforms to reshape teaching methods and link innovative practices with improved equity and performance outcomes. In Catalonia (Spain), a clear example of this phenomenon, recent policy developments have pressured schools and teachers to introduce innovative teaching practices to enhance the overall quality of the educational system. Yet, the conceptual framework of school innovation in this context is broad and ambiguous. Therefore, the Catalan case offers a rich context to explore how educational innovation policy is interpreted and enacted in schools. This study uses enactment and sensemaking theories, considering material, symbolic, and cognitive factors that explain variations in practices across schools. The study employs a qualitative approach to examine teachers’ and principals’ interpretations of the innovation policy and to analyse innovation practices. The findings show that the broad and ambiguous nature of the innovation policy mandate allows for wide interpretation, adaptation, and enactment, highly dependent on school actors’ understandings of innovation and contextual factors. Additionally, schools often engage in innovation at a superficial level, with externally driven, fragmented, and standardized innovation practices being most frequent, although this varies across schools’ socioeconomic levels.

Purpose: How can managers reduce information asymmetry in dyadic manager-external stakeholder relationships in a complex and evolving environment? Addressing this question has significant implications for firm survival, growth, and competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach: We have adopted a multiparadigm approach to theory building, known as metatriangulation. We integrate the dynamic capabilities, sensemaking, and evolutionary theory literatures to theorize how managers can relate to stakeholders in a complex and evolving environment. Findings: We propose, via a conceptual framework and three propositions, "evolutionary sensemaking" as the managerial metacognitive dynamic capability that helps managers hone their understanding based on the evolutionary changes in the stakeholder's interpretations of information quality preferences. The framework unfolds across three evolutionary stages: sensing preferences' variation of the stakeholder, seizing preferences, and transforming for complexity alignment and retention. The propositions focus on managing complexity in stakeholder information quality preference, employing cognitive capabilities to simplify, interpret, and align interpretations for effective information asymmetry reduction. Practical implications: To develop the metacognitive dynamic capability of evolutionary sensemaking, managers need to train for and foster the underlying complex cognitive capabilities by enhancing their (1) perception and attention skills, (2) problem-solving and reasoning skills, and (3) language, communication, and social cognition skills, focusing specifically on reducing the complexity embedded in stakeholder cognition and diverse stakeholder preferences for information quality. Contrary to the current advice to "keep things simple" and provide "more" information to the stakeholders for opportunism reduction, trust-building, and superior governance, our framework suggests that managers hone their cognitive capabilities by learning to deal with the underlying complexity. Originality/value: The proposed framework and propositions address research gaps in reducing information asymmetry. It enriches the dynamic capabilities literature by recognizing complexity (as opposed to opportunism) as an alternative source of information asymmetry, which needs to be addressed in this stream of research. It extends the sensemaking literature by identifying the complexity sources – i.e. stakeholder preferences for diverse information quality attributes and the associated cognitive preference interpretation processes. The article enhances evolutionary theory by delving into microprocesses related to information asymmetry reduction, which the existing literature does not thoroughly investigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Constructivist learning theories consider deep understanding of the content to be the result of engagement in relevant learning activities with appropriate scaffolding that provides the learner with timely and substantive feedback. However, any group of students has a variety of levels of knowledge and cognitive development, which makes providing appropriate individual-level scaffolding and feedback challenging in the classroom. Computer simulations can help meet this challenge by providing technology-enhanced embedded scaffolding and feedback via specific simulation design. The use of computer simulations does not, however, guarantee development of deep science understanding. Careful research-driven design of the simulation and the accompanying teaching structure both play critical roles in achieving the desired learning outcomes. In this paper, we discuss the capabilities of computer simulations and the issues that can impact the learning outcomes when combining technology-enhanced scaffolding and feedback with external teaching structures. We conclude with suggestions of promising research avenues on simulation design and their use in the classroom to help students achieve deep science understanding.

While business ethics (BE) courses have increasingly formed part of business school curricula, we still do not know much about how these courses can change students’ capacity to deal with ethical issues. Drawing on a sensemaking perspective, we conducted an action research study with 66 business professionals enrolled in an executive training program at a French university. The aim was to investigate the processes underlying ethical judgment (EJ) change through a BE course. Participants were invited to pick a significant ethical issue they had personally experienced at work. They were then asked to make sense of it, in writing, at the beginning and at the end of the course, 3 months later. In comparing pre-course and post-course judgments, we concluded that the structure and contents of the respondents’ initial judgment had indeed been modified. This change could be accounted for as the outcome of four ‘sense-remaking’ mechanisms, which we theorize as complexifying, reprioritizing, conceptualizing and contextualizing. Our study contributes to the literature on BE education by demonstrating the benefits of a sensemaking approach. It also offers an original process-based model of EJ, specifying the mechanisms at play in EJ change. Finally, it contributes to the field of sensemaking studies by introducing the concept of sense-remaking, shedding new light on the evolutive dimension of sensemaking.

"Wine Mom" culture has recently been popularized through social media, entertainment, and household products. Although numerous popular editorials and blogs scrutinize the behaviors associated with wine mom culture, little academic research has systemically investigated the topic. Thus, the current study uses semi-structured interviews (N = 22) and a phronetic iterative approach to explore how cis-gendered mothers—the targeted population of these messages—make sense of sarcastic "wine mom" messages, which can potentially trivialize or glamourize alcohol use and misuse. Sensemaking theory broadly informs how mothers interpret and are influenced by the wine mom messages (WMM) they see on artifacts scattered throughout store shelves or in people's homes—such as signs, dish towels, or clothing. We build a taxonomy outlining the range with which cis-gendered mothers interpret WMM and explore their accounts and rationalizations of how WMM messages have effects on the social, psychological, and physical health of mothers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Science teachers' understanding of the roles of computing practices in science frame how they enact scientific computational practices in their teaching and how their students perceive the relationship between computational practices and scientific endeavours. Objectives: This critical, integrative review synthesizes teacher learning literature about the role of computational literacy and computing practices in K‐12 science teaching. Methods: We examined 54 peer‐reviewed articles and analysed the ways the researchers and teacher participants describe the affordances of integrating computational thinking (CT) and other computational practices in science. We characterize how CT and computational practices are framed in relation to scientific learning goals. We identify six primary affordances for integrating computational practices with science that are conveyed to teachers and by teachers, as represented in these studies of teacher learning. Results and Conclusions: These six perspectives include (1) learning computer science principles, (2) developing CT dispositions, (3) engagement and inclusion in science, (4) taking ownership of science, (5) supporting learning science content, and (6) participating in computational practice as a form of scientific epistemic practice. Our analysis indicates that computational thinking and computational practices are often integrated in science in order to teach something about computing (e.g., Perspective 1), rather than to support learners' scientific work. Only the 29 articles coded for the sixth perspective—that is, in service of epistemic aims in science—demonstrate commitment to students' uses of computational ideas and practices as epistemic tools to participate in the sensemaking work of science. Takeaways: Comparison of Perspectives 5 and 6 illustrates the nuance between computational practices in science that reify something students have already "figured out," rather than those that serve epistemic goals. Perspective 6 encapsulates the deep synergy among (1) the reflexive nature of computing with scientific ideas and (2) computing as a central practice in science and engineering. We contend that a more focused message of computational practices in service of scientific sensemaking goals is necessary if we expect teachers to enact CT and related computational practices in their classrooms. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic?: Science teachers' understanding of the roles of computing practices in science frame how they enact scientific computational practices in their teaching. What this paper adds?: We analysed 54 peer‐reviewed articles regarding teacher learning about the role of computational literacy and computing practices in K‐12 science teaching.We characterized the ways the researchers and teacher participants describe the affordances of integrating computational thinking (CT) and other computational practices in science.We present six primary affordances for integrating computational practices with science that are conveyed to teachers and by teachers, as represented in these studies of teacher learning. These six perspectives include (1) learning computer science principles, (2) developing CT dispositions, (3) engagement and inclusion in science, (4) taking ownership of science, (5) supporting learning science content, and (6) computational practices in service of epistemic aims in science. Implications for practice and/or policy: We find that computational thinking and computational practices are often integrated in science in order to teach introductory computer science principles, but not to support the original science learning aims.Only the 29 of 54 articles demonstrate commitment to students' uses of computational ideas and practices as epistemic tools to participate in the sensemaking work of science.We contend that a more focused message of computational practices in service of scientific sensemaking goals is necessary if we expect teachers to enact CT and related computational practices in their classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work placement is an important aspect of higher education studies and career preparation. Effective preparation is crucial for students to succeed in placements, yet little is known about international students' placement preparation, particularly regarding their sensemaking. This qualitative study, guided by an integrative theoretical framework, examined international health science (HSc) undergraduate students' sensemaking behaviors as they prepare for in-person placements in a host country. Data were gathered through 36 semi-structured interviews with 12 international HSc undergraduate students (three with each student). Findings unravel complicated psychological and interpersonal processes undergone by student participants during pre-placement sensemaking. These insights can inform institutional strategies to support international students in building sensemaking capacities to effectively prepare for placements and post-study work transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations strategically invest in the aesthetics of their spaces to communicate about their values, mission, and position within an industry or community. Given the growth of mass visual culture and the circulation of images online, exposure to aestheticized workspaces is pervasive. In light of this heightened awareness of workplace design, we sought to understand how workers make sense of and interpret such images. We conducted a visual study in which office workers responded to images of strategically-designed offices. We found that most participants used sensemaking strategies of interpreting affordances and other salient cues to arrive at generally favorable conclusions about the organizations portrayed; these conclusions largely reflected organizationally-preferred interpretations. However, participants' sensemaking also revealed how they wrestled with ambiguities of meaning to arrive at their conclusions. We illustrate the power of workplace imagery for communicating normative values about work, workers, and organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the benefits of intimate reflexive encounters with a ‘critical friend’ in the context of a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project. We conceptualize these encounters as an evolving relationship between a kayaker who supports the swim (research) and the swimmer (researcher). Methodologically, we adopt a form of co-constructed autoethnography and contribute to ongoing collective approaches to reflexivity and explorations in co-writing. We demonstrate how through asking clarifying questions, probing assumptions, listening to, and validating emotions, and orienting towards solutions, a ‘critical friend’ can support the researcher in engaging in reflexive sensemaking. Overall, these intimate encounters reveal assumptions, anxieties, challenges, limitations, and a range of emotions involved in conducting PAR. The kayaker and swimmer harness the power of peer support and create spaces of collegiality to resist the growing individualization and ever-increasing pressures of academic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms operating in developing economies are increasingly expected to implement CSR practices aligned with recognized global standards. Drawing on extensive field study data in four Latin American countries, we contribute to business ethics scholarship by making visible and explaining firm shortcomings across social, environmental, and governance goals and activities of CSR. Building on and extending sensemaking literature, we find that leaders and managers responsible for their firms' CSR activities make sense of and justify CSR shortcomings. We specify that justification based on individual, organizational/industry, and macro-environmental influences serves as a mechanism that decouples firms' actual CSR practices from recognized CSR standards. Further, we propose that detachment, involving disconnection from the local operating environment, underlies the CSR shortcomings of firms. We develop a theoretical multi-level model that specifies justification as a mechanism and detachment as an underlying driver of CSR shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructivist learning theories consider deep understanding of the content to be the result of engagement in relevant learning activities with appropriate scaffolding that provides the learner with timely and substantive feedback. However, any group of students has a variety of levels of knowledge and cognitive development, which makes providing appropriate individual-level scaffolding and feedback challenging in the classroom. Computer simulations can help meet this challenge by providing technology-enhanced embedded scaffolding and feedback via specific simulation design. The use of computer simulations does not, however, guarantee development of deep science understanding. Careful research-driven design of the simulation and the accompanying teaching structure both play critical roles in achieving the desired learning outcomes. In this paper, we discuss the capabilities of computer simulations and the issues that can impact the learning outcomes when combining technology-enhanced scaffolding and feedback with external teaching structures. We conclude with suggestions of promising research avenues on simulation design and their use in the classroom to help students achieve deep science understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that learning analytics as a research field can benefit from a theory‐informed shared language to describe sensemaking of learning and teaching data. To make the case for such shared language, first, I critically review prominent sensemaking theories to then demonstrate how studies in learning analytics do not use coherent descriptions of sensemaking, eclectically combining the paradigms that have underlying differences. I then propose a conceptualization of sensemaking that overcomes the differences between these theories and explains how the concepts of activity system, the definition of the situation and affordances can be used to capture individual differences in sensemaking. The paper concludes with a preliminary framework and examples demonstrating its utility in raising new theoretical questions, informing design principles and providing shared language for researchers in learning analytics.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicSensemaking happens when individuals try to explain unknown situations.Learning analytics uses sensemaking as a lens to understand dashboard use.Systematic analysis of sensemaking is essential for learning analytics.What this paper addsThe paper notes that noticing and perceiving are commonly examined in learning analytics on dashboard use.The paper suggests a revision of fundamental assumptions in sensemaking.A paper proposes a toy model of sensemaking that includes operationalization of the definition of the situation, activity where sensemaking happens and processes of noticing and perceiving affordances.Implications for practice and/or policyLearning analytics must examine sensemaking of data about teaching and learning in a systematic manner.Internal perceptions of the social environment and activity that are informed by the data need to be considered in evaluating dashboard use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An understanding of how sensemaking unfolds when elementary students engage in engineering design tasks is crucial to advancing engineering teaching and learning at K‐12 levels. Sensemaking has been widely studied in the context of science as a discipline. In this paper, we seek to contribute to the more nascent efforts to build theory about the characteristics of sensemaking in elementary school engineering. We report on an interpretive case study of a 3rd grade student team who worked with minimal adult intervention to design a solution to an engineering challenge. Considering the entire trajectory of their design process, from the given problem to the solution, we observed that they navigated through multiple epistemic conflicts while making decisions that informed their final solution. We found that these conflicts served as opportunities for sensemaking and that exploring how the students resolved conflicts shed light on their sensemaking processes. Analysis of the team's navigation through epistemic conflicts to come to a design decision helped identify two distinct kinds of engineering sensemaking: student engagement in functional reasoning as they suggested design ideas, and student engagement in mechanistic reasoning as they interpreted test results. Both processes facilitated knowledge building, which in turn supported students' engineering design decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essential aspect of scientific practice involves grappling with the generation of predictions, representations, interpretations, investigations, and communications related to scientific phenomena, all of which are inherently permeated with uncertainty. Transferring this practice from expert settings to the classroom is invaluable yet challenging. Teachers often perceive struggles as incidental, negative, and uncomfortable, assuming they stem from students' deficiencies in knowledge or understanding, which they feel compelled to promptly address to progress. While some empirical research has explored the role of scientific uncertainties in driving productive student struggle, few studies have explicitly examined or provided a framework to unpack scientific uncertainty as it manifests in the classroom, including the sources that lead to student struggle and how teachers can manage it effectively. In this position paper, we elucidate the importance of incorporating scientific uncertainties as pedagogical resources to foster student struggles through uncertainty from three perspectives: scientific literacy, student agency, and coherent trajectories of sensemaking. To develop a theoretical framework, we consider scientific uncertainty as a resource for productive struggle in the sensemaking process. We delve into two types (e.g., conceptual, epistemic), four sources (e.g., insufficiency, ambiguity, incoherence, conflict), and three desirability considerations (e.g., relevance, timing, complexity) of scientific uncertainties in student struggles to provide a theoretical foundation for understanding what students struggle with, why they struggle, and how scientific uncertainties can be effectively managed by teachers. With this framework, researchers and teachers can examine the (mis)alignments between uncertainty‐in‐design, uncertainty‐in‐practice, and uncertainty‐in‐reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undergraduate students often view and define terms differently than faculty and scholars. Differences in the operationalization of terms can lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding, especially within university classrooms. The present study used the theoretical framework of sensemaking to understand how undergraduate students perceived and defined inclusion in university classrooms. Through the facilitation of eight focus groups (N = 50), we identified four elements that contribute to inclusion/exclusion: "Respect," "Safety," "Unfettered Expression," and "Context Appropriate." Theoretically, these findings show a lack of concreteness in students' definition of these terms, which can lead to ambiguity and ambivalence when defining the boundaries of inclusive/exclusive spaces. The lack of specificity dilutes the power of these words and phrases, and its ability to meet its intended purpose (e.g., disruption of oppressive systems). Pedagogically, for instructors to become intentional practitioners of inclusion, we argue that instructors must have an operationalized definition of inclusion grounded in social justice frameworks, share this definition and its rationale with students, engage in instructor reflexivity, and develop proactive strategies to combat challenges to inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School leadership was transformed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In this crisis, principals organised schooling amidst extreme confusion and uncertainty. Using sensemaking theory to capture how leaders identified, interpreted, and acted on this novel situation, this longitudinal qualitative study describes how school leaders, in interaction with stakeholders, generated understanding during the pandemic. We draw particular attention to a set of actors – parents – who elevated their participation in education broadly and sensemaking specifically in ways that have yet to be explored in other educational research. We examine the active role parents played in shaping educational decisions, their interaction with school leadership, and the growing polarisation exacerbated by the deepening political crisis that frames the field of education more generally. Our findings highlight how school leaders and parents held competing beliefs about how schools should be organised, leading to a process of what we call sensesplitting, the growth of two narratives emerging out of the same phenomena. This study offers important insight into how organisational sensemaking in education is increasingly shaped by parents, politics, and school leadership and the impact of this shift on leaders' decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dating Wrapped trend on TikTok takes inspiration from Spotify's annual Wrapped event where Spotify users are presented with their year-end listening statistics. Dating Wrapped repackages fundamental components of Spotify's Wrapped—a focus on aesthetics, PowerPoint-like presentation of information, and quantification of personal experiences—but does so in the context of interpersonal relationships as a dating year-in-review video on TikTok. This article applies a content analysis and critical thematic analysis to 54 TikTok videos with the hashtag DatingWrapped as a way to understand how sensemaking about sexual and romantic relationships occurs when individuals create content centered around self-disclosures of intimate experiences. Ultimately, we argue that trends such as Dating Wrapped provide opportunities for personal expression among emerging adults who use TikTok, the efficacy of which is enhanced by attention to data visualization within its presentation format. Second, TikTok trends centered around interpersonal relationships may influence the formation of sexual and romantic identities through processes of mediated learning about relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research highlights how entrepreneurs depend on resourceful actions to overcome constraints in value-creation situations. Yet, most resourcefulness research has examined its external manifestations. To complement this, I examine the cognitive and embodied sensemaking process that underpins resourceful actions. Using an autoethnography of a 1430-mile mountain bike ride across South Africa, I distill a microfoundational sensemaking perspective underpinning resourcefulness, highlighting how actors who confront resource-constrained situations find creative ways to overcome such constraints to move forward in their endeavors. Furthermore, I specify how resourcefulness is impacted by priming, learning, and contagion within a challenging context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We take a process perspective to review the literature on corporate responses to social activism and argue that theoretical advances have not kept pace with the extensive and expanding scope of the literature. We identify three critical assumptions in the literature, which we believe can be traced back to two overarching issues: a mechanistic conceptualization that ascribes limited reflexivity to managers and an overreliance on variance theorizing. In order to tackle these challenges and propel future research, we suggest a research agenda that revolves around an enhanced role for managerial reflexivity in theory development and a stronger emphasis on the process-oriented view of the relationship between activism and response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using student evaluations of teaching (SETs) as a quality assessment tool have long been a highly debated topic among both practitioners and scholars of higher education teaching. Rather than focus on whether SETs provide reliable measurements of quality, we explore what happens when SETs are implemented as or intended as quality development tools. We report from a qualitative study of how higher education teachers and managers perceive and use SETs as part of developing their own teaching, and focus on how the dialogue around teaching, which was intended as a part of the quality assessment procedure, is actualized (or not) in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to understand the cognitive, affective and socially situated processes through which young people make sense of politics. We ask (1) how young people construct understandings of political issues, and (2) when these understandings facilitate their orientation to and connection with political issues. To answer these questions, we conducted 4 × 4 focus groups with groups of 15–30-year-old Dutch people, each time focusing on a, then current, political issue: the Syrian Civil War, the (so-called) US Muslim travel ban, the 2017 Dutch general election, and the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. Our analysis of the group discussions shows that young people make sense of and become emotionally involved in political issues through: (a) feelings of indignation that link a political issue with one’s personal values, (b) media-facilitated affective orientations towards political actors that function as representations of a political issue, and (c) the connection of a political issue with meaningful social contexts and experiences. Our findings add to extant scholarly work on political learning by shedding light on the affective, situated and social processes through which political understandings and orientations are formed in young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research uses a discursive psychology and social constructionist approach to examine how organic food patrons think about, experience, and make sense of the organic label as a "boundary concept." Based on data from 30 in-depth interviews with self-identified organic food consumers, emic and etic coding of consumer narratives reveals the socially constitutive nature of organic food practices. Despite organic food consumers' understanding of what organic means, their meaning-making process derives from a certain kind of nostalgia for their childhood meal experience and upbringing, family values, because "it tastes better," and "just feels right." While consumer knowledge aligns with the analytical sensemaking system, the second group of factors is associated with the experiential system. Hence, leveraging nostalgia appeals in organic food advertising holds promise for mainstreaming organic food consumption practices in marketing contexts such as the U.S., where environmental attitudes are associated with political ideologies and thus polarizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 2020 the US Forest Service (USFS) recognized the need to gather real-time information from its wildland fire management personnel about their challenges and adaptations during the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. The USFS conducted 194 virtual focus groups to address these concerns, over 32 weeks from March 2020 to October 2020. This management effort provided an opportunity for an innovative practice-based research study. Here, we outline a novel methodological approach (weekly, iterative focus groups, with two-way communication between USFS staff and leadership), which culminated in a model for focus group coordination during extended crises. We also document the substantive challenges USFS wildfire employees discussed, including: conflicting policies and procedures; poor communication; ill-defined decision space; barriers to multi-jurisdictional resources; negative impacts on work-life balance; and disruption of pre-season training. USFS focus groups were effective for knowledge sharing among employees and elevating issues to top levels of the USFS management structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognition of the complexity of the world raises questions about new theories, methods, and capabilities for evaluation practice. Approaches originating in the systems sciences show promise; however, many require specialized expertise and resources. This article explores rich pictures as an accessible, low-resource method for facilitating sensemaking amid complexity. The method involves the free-hand drawing of a situation to richly illustrate what is happening and why using images, lines, and few words. The process and product are akin to elaborate childhood doodles, yet are remarkably powerful conveyors of tacit knowledge and issues, differing perspectives, and action possibilities. Drawing together methodological guidance, sensemaking theory, and an application with STEM higher education faculty, this article shows how rich pictures support sensemaking amid complexity and identifies potential applications and directions for research on the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]