Teachers' and school leaders' sensemaking of formal achievement data: A conceptual review

Abstract

Formal achievement data such as test scores and school performance feedback from standardised assessments can be a powerful tool for data‐based decision making and school improvement. However, teachers’ and school leaders’ usage of these data is not necessarily straightforward or predictable. In order to illuminate how educational professionals engage with data in their daily practice, from their own subjective backgrounds and within their own contexts, data use researchers increasingly adopt a sensemaking perspective. Sensemaking, a theoretical construct grounded in psychological and organisational scholarship, offers a framework and a vocabulary to explain how cues such as educational output data are processed in real‐life educational settings. As such, sensemaking research sheds light on reasons why educational professionals’ use of these formal achievement data may deviate from normative expectations. The present study is a conceptual review of how sensemaking is conceived and applied in literature on educational professionals’ use of formal achievement data. In total, 25 empirical and theoretical studies were selected and subjected to thematic analysis. Findings include that sensemaking is used as a lens to study data use, as well as a label for interpretive micro‐processes of data analysis and interpretation, and that formal achievement data can be regarded as sensemaking resources. An integrated conceptual framework on educational professionals’ sensemaking of formal achievement data is presented, including a discussion of critical insights that may inspire future research on data‐based decision making in education.

Teacher Sensemaking in an Early Education Research–Practice Partnership

“…Teachers accumulate practical wisdom in the course of their teaching experiences and their past learning (Huang, 2015; Shulman & Wilson, 2004), and this knowledge shapes how they make sense of new ideas. Studies using a sensemaking framework have been conducted on a range of topics including how teachers make sense of curriculum shifts (Allen & Penuel, 2015; Coburn, 2001; März & Kelchtermans, 2013), student learning data (Bertrand & Marsh, 2015; Goffin et al, 2022), and professional development (Patrick & Joshi, 2019). Teachers make sense of new information in relation to their existing ways of thinking (Coburn, 2001).…”

Principals’ and Teachers’ Comprehension of School Performance Feedback Reports. Exploring Misconceptions from a User Validity Perspective

“…receive a message and implement adjustments accordingly -data users make sense of data (Earl & Fullan, 2003;Schildkamp, 2019). Interpretive sensemaking processes are at the core of contemporary theories of action on data use (Schildkamp, 2019), but they are complex and rooted in sensemakers' personal lenses, prior knowledge, and social and organizational contexts (Goffin, Janssen, & Vanhoof, 2022). Sensemaking entails asking oneself what the data mean, what the data mean for one's class or school, and what to do next.…”