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Understanding “influence”: An empirical test of the D ata‐ F rame T heory of S ensemaking
Author(s) -
Pontis Sheila,
Blandford Ann
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.903
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 2330-1643
pISSN - 2330-1635
DOI - 10.1002/asi.23427
Subject(s) - sensemaking , think aloud protocol , construct (python library) , domain (mathematical analysis) , narrative , test (biology) , computer science , psychology , frame (networking) , empirical research , data science , epistemology , knowledge management , human–computer interaction , linguistics , mathematical analysis , paleontology , philosophy , telecommunications , mathematics , usability , biology , programming language
This paper reports findings from a study designed to gain broader understanding of sensemaking activities using the D ata/ F rame T heory 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 both HCI and chemistry. Data were coded and analyzed using the D ata/ F rame M odel 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 the D ata/ F rame M odel to accommodate structure sensemaking.