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In order to better understand how student affairs master’s candidates think through disruptions, discrepancies, and surprises during their professional socialization experiences, this study posed the following research sub-question: When and how do student affairs graduate students engage in sensemaking during their graduate training experiences? This research also examined the ways in which sensemaking processes influence new practitioners’ understanding of the field by asking: How does student affairs graduate students’ process of sensemaking and their shifting capacity for self- authorship affect their evolving understanding of the meaning of professional practice and their professional identities as they are socialized into the field?

As noted in Chapter II, prior research suggests that discrepancies between new student affairs practitioners’ graduate training experiences and their first post-master’s positions affects their level of job satisfaction and their desire to stay in the field long- term (e.g., Cilente, et al, 2006; Piskadlo, 2004; Renn & Hodges, 2007). While this body of scholarship highlights the power of discrepancies during individuals’ transitions to practice, it does little to reveal how people create repairs or come to an understanding of the surprises or gaps they encounter during graduate school. Individuals’ abilities to restore understanding following disruptions may have implications on the field’s capacity to achieve the desired outcomes of professional socialization (e.g., values acquisition, job

exploring the potential influence of repairs is a notable omission from the existing literature in student affairs. By leveraging the strengths of sensemaking, this study has the potential to provide a more complete portrait of how individuals navigate

discrepancies as they are socialized into student affairs and the implications that this process has on attaining the aims of professional socialization.

My analysis of participants’ experiences revealed that new practitioners were frequently prompted to engage in sensemaking since they encountered numerous disruptions, discrepancies, and surprises during their student affairs graduate training. With this observation in mind, this chapter initially provides an overview of longitudinal patterns in the frequency of sensemaking episodes and of participants’ use of various sensemaking resources (Weick, 1995). I then more deeply explore the predominant contexts and triggers of sensemaking episodes in order to illuminate where and when the need for sensemaking emerges during graduate training in student affairs. Then, I characterize how participants have attempted to create repairs following the

aforementioned disruptions. This chapter concludes with a synthesis of the findings and a discussion of the ways in which participants’ abilities to make sense of disruptions influences their movement towards the desired outcomes of professional socialization.

Overview of Patterns in Sensemaking Frequency of Sensemaking Episodes

During their graduate training, participants encountered numerous situations that prompted them to engage in sensemaking. As shown in Table 5.1, sensemaking episodes occurred at each time point during the study. Notably, every participant described at least

one experience per interview where they had to make sense of what was happening after being thrown by surprises, discrepancies, or disruptions.

As one might anticipate, participants shared the largest number of sensemaking episodes during their second interview (n=80; 38.3%), which was conducted at the end of their first year of graduate training. During this particular interview, individuals reflected upon their initial transition to graduate school and their subsequent experiences in their courses and in their field placements. Given the period of time covered, this interview may have more effectively captured the feelings of “thrownness” or confusion,

disorientation, and bewilderment that occurred throughout participants’ early

socialization into the field as they learned what it meant to be a master’s candidate and a student affairs practitioner.

Table 5.1

Frequency of Sensemaking Episodes and Use of Sensemaking Resources Over Time

Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 Total

#SM Episodes 59 80 70 209 Mean #Episodes 2.81 3.81 3.33 3.31 SM Resources Utilized Social Context 67 99 98 264 Salient Cues 41 67 20 128 Identity 30 50 52 132 Retrospect 39 43 34 116 Enactment 9 11 16 36 Ongoing Projects 13 8 21 42 Plausibility 23 28 36 87

Notes: n=21 at each time point and each participant described at least one sensemaking episode. Sensemaking resources can be used more than once per episode.

Interestingly, participants’ shared the fewest number of sensemaking episodes during their initial interviews (n=59; 28.2%), which is counterintuitive since this

Perhaps these newcomers weren’t sure what to expect as they began graduate training despite having received some cues about the nature of their respective programs during their campus interviews. It is also possible that they were unclear about what was normative in their new environments and as such they struggled to identify discrepancies and disruptions. In essence, the transition to graduate school may have been filled with so many new and surprising experiences that participants had a difficult time determining where to focus their attention.

It is also noteworthy that participants described a relatively similar number of sensemaking episodes during their second (n=80; 38.3%) and their third interviews (n=70; 33.5%), which occurred near the conclusion of their first and second years of graduate training respectively. Participants’ increased familiarity with context of their coursework and their fieldwork could have contributed to the number of sensemaking episodes participants encountered during their second year of graduate training in that they may have been more apt to notice discrepancies and disruptions in the environment. Moreover, as they became more deeply embedded in the field, they may have been more sensitive to discrepancies within and between their coursework and their fieldwork. The frequency of sensemaking throughout graduate training signals that individuals may be prompted to engage in sensemaking for different reasons as they are socialized into student affairs.

Frequency of Sensemaking Resources Used

Participants utilized an array of sensemaking resources to navigate situations that surprised or threw them during their graduate training (see Table 5.1). At each time point, social context was the resource most frequently used by individuals as they tried to

figure out, “What’s the story here?” In fact, social context was referenced almost twice as frequently (n=264; 32.8%) as all other sensemaking resources over the course of two years. Participants’ tendencies to look to social context for guidance may be indicative of their roles as newcomers to their educational and work environments. Turning to others enables individuals to ascertain the normative values, beliefs, and practices that guide their environment, which in turn allows them to contextualize their explanations for surprising or counterintuitive events.

Although salient cues may be used in a similar manner, participants did not reference them as frequently throughout their graduate training experience (n=128; 15.9%). It is possible that participants overlooked salient cues given their status as newcomers. They may have also been more attentive to social context given that student affairs is a field that relies heavily on interpersonal relationships and skills.

Participants also frequently turned towards their identities (n=132; 16.4%) and retrospect or past experiences (n=116; 14.4%) as they attempted to navigate sensemaking episodes. The use of identity as a resource is not surprising in this context given that one of the aims of student affairs graduate training is to hone new practitioners’ professional identities. To this end, the curriculum is structured to encourage people to think about they see themselves engaging in the field now and in the future. Furthermore, practice in student affairs is strongly guided by human development theories, including those that characterize identity development. With this in mind, participants may have been primed to use identity as a sensemaking resource given that it is a featured component of student affairs curriculum and practice. Similarly, individuals may have looked to retrospect to navigate sensemaking episodes since they typically had prior collegiate experiences in

student affairs (e.g., Resident Assistant, orientation leader, student government officer). These past experiences typically fostered their interest in the field and often served as touchstones that guided how they thought about and engaged in student affairs practice.

While participants utilized enactment (n=36; 4.5%), ongoing projects (n=42; 5.2%), and plausibility (n=87; 10.8%) as resources during sensemaking experiences, they tended to do so less frequently. These particular resources may not have seemed as salient given the nature of their graduate training, which as previously noted may have primed them to use other tools (e.g., social context, identity). Nonetheless, the use of enactment, ongoing projects, and plausibility may reflect the continuous nature of socialization in student affairs in that newcomers may have found themselves working through surprises, discrepancies, and disruptions over an extended period of time. Their sparing use of these resources may also be indicative of participants’ evolving

conceptions of the field throughout their graduate training. As they continued to be (re)socialized into student affairs, individuals may have needed to readjust their responses to situations based on their current understanding of the field. Changes in participants’ perspectives may have also led them to reconceptualize what they considered to be reasonable explanations for situations that triggered them to engage in sensemaking.

While examining frequencies provides us with a snapshot of the how many sensemaking episodes occurred and the extent to which participants used various

sensemaking resources, a more complicated picture is needed to understand the nature of sensemaking during professional socialization. Specifically, it would be beneficial to further explore the contexts and triggers of participants’ sensemaking experiences and how they worked to restore their understanding of the world after it was disrupted.

Patterns in Sensemaking Contexts and Triggers Contexts of Sensemaking Experiences

Throughout participants’ graduate training experiences, the need for sensemaking emerged in multiple contexts (see Table 5.2). Some contexts were reflective of the points in time at which the interviews were conducted. For example, during the initial interview several participants described their struggle to navigate the uncertainty their graduate school search and the ambiguity of the assistantship matching process (n=10; 4.8%). Given that participants had enrolled in a graduate training program, this context was not relevant in subsequent interviews. Similarly, individuals discussed being thrown by the nebulous nature of the job search process during their third interview (n=9; 4.3%), which was conducted as they were preparing for interviews and for graduation. In contrast, other contexts were more consistent forums for sensemaking (see Figure 5.1), particularly coursework (n=44; 21.1%) and fieldwork (n=99; 47.4%), which are the main components of graduate training in student affairs.

Table 5.2

Contexts of Sensemaking Episodes Over Time Time 1 (n=59) Time 2 (n=80) Time 3 (n=70) Total (n=209)

Graduate school search 10 0 0 10

Fieldwork Assistantship 17 39 23 79 Practicum 0 5 15 20 Coursework 15 20 9 44 Cohort interactions 4 7 5 16 Institutional culture/climate 7 5 2 14

Student affairs culture 0 0 2 2

Prof. development opp. 1 1 9 11

Prof. role transition 5 1 2 8

Personal issues/challenges 0 2 3 5

Notes: Professional development opportunities include conferences, career exploration forums, study abroad programs. Participants also described trying to make sense of broad

Figure 5.1

Frequency of Sensemaking Contexts Over Time

Coursework as a context for sensemaking. Sensemaking episodes related to participants’ coursework predominantly occurred during their first year of training as they were attempting to understand the nature of graduate level education in student affairs. For example, Sarah, a White woman who pursued graduate training after working in K-12 education, was surprised by the course content and structure when she first arrived at Gribbons University:

I thought coming into the program that we’d do, like, case studies, best practices, kind of learn about the different functional areas. And they’d send us on our way and ta-da! But it’s funny because I was like, “Wow, there’s so much theory and psych involved.” I didn’t realize how much student psychology and development was involved in this. I’ve always been interested in psych and sociology. I was an anthropology minor. ... It’s very intriguing and interesting.

Sarah was thrown by both the course content and pedagogical practices used in student affairs since they differed from her expectations prior to entering the program. In

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particular, she was surprised to find that student affairs was firmly grounded in theories of human development and that her training would extend beyond examining “case studies [and] best practices.” Though the foci of her courses deviated from her

expectations, Sarah noted that she was comfortable with seminar format that was used at Gribbons since she had attended a small liberal arts college that had similarly structured courses. Yet, she expected that her instructors would explicitly review more content than they did each week:

One thing that I wasn’t expecting necessarily is that we don’t really cover what we read as much as we did. So it’s still touched upon but not really, “Alright. Everyone have a firm understanding on this?” It’s kind of assumed that you have a firm understanding or you ask a question.

Despite her familiarity with seminar courses, she found that her graduate level classes weren’t aligned with her expectations since there was little focus on content mastery. Rather, Sarah’s instructors assumed basic comprehension and moved on to further discussion of the readings.

Janelle, an African American woman who began graduate school immediately after completing her bachelor’s degree, was also surprised by the nature of her courses at Gribbons University during her first year. However, Janelle was thrown for a very different reason than Sarah was:

We had a teaching and learning class this semester. So we were learning about the best ways to assess students, teaching practices, learning paradigms and things of that nature. Or what really matters in the classroom when it comes to college students. And then in a completely different class a teacher is, you know, giving us pop quizzes or just not doing things that we’re learning in this other course. Or not teaching the way that we’re learning is the best way to teach and things like that, so. And I understand there’s a lot to kind of go into how you teach your class and satisfying different types of learning styles or whatever. But it was really frustrating because we’re learning, you know, this one thing and then we’re getting a completely different experience in another class. It’s very frustrating.

Janelle’s comments indicate that she was thrown by the lack of continuity between her courses. In one class, she was learning the tenets of good pedagogy and in another course the instructor was using practices that were the antithesis of “what really matters in the classroom when it comes to college students.” Ultimately, Janelle was frustrated by the gap between espoused and enacted values across her program (i.e., commitment to student learning and development, bringing theory to practice). While Janelle was told how to best help students learn using assessments, best practices, and learning paradigms, she found these tenets were not consistently reflected in her own classes.

Although a majority of participants’ sensemaking experiences in the context of coursework occurred during the first year of graduate school, some individuals

encountered disruptions, discrepancies, and ambiguity as second year students. For example, Stacey, a White woman and first-generation college student, described being puzzled by the focus of her multicultural competence course at Nash University after taking a more advanced social justice education class as a first year student:

That [social justice education] class was all about, you know, that class was really great. We all practiced doing training sessions regarding specific issues of social justice. ... I thought that’s what my multicultural competence course was going to be, but really it was about the structure and the system and student affairs as a field. And it took me so long in the semester to realize that. And I spent the first few weeks being frustrated at the class when really I just had poor grasp on what it was supposed to be talking about. Like, what the purpose of the class was. So I actually found the social justice education course to be more meaningful because in multicultural competency course our major assignments were to do three reflections of where we were at [with the topic]. Which, I love reflecting. I love journaling. I think it’s really important to know where you’re at. But we didn’t have…we weren’t given... the content matter to critically reflect on where we’re at. ...we didn’t even have conversations about hegemonic femininity and

hegemonic masculinity. So how - and I’m fortunate that I’ve had that education and had those conversations, but how are some of the peers in my class supposed to critically reflect on their identity and their representation of their identity if they don’t have the terms? And we didn’t really ever unpack different… there

competence that we never even really got a textbook definition for or introduction to. So I felt like reflecting on our identities three times in a three and a half month period was just not very meaningful. And it just wasn’t as… I’ll just say just wasn’t as advanced as I think I was ready for.

As Stacey reflected upon her multicultural competency course, she indicated that her experience did not match her expectations given the nature of the social justice education course she had taken the previous term. Rather than exploring issues of power and privilege as she anticipated, her multicultural competency course was focused on personal identity exploration. Although she eventually came to recognize the distinct purpose of the multicultural competency course, Stacey continued to be puzzled by the course assignments since they were ill structured. While she noted that she “love[s] reflecting,” her instructor provided little information about what she was “supposed to critically reflect on” when thinking about her identity. The gap between Stacey’s expectations and experiences coupled with the ambiguity in her assignments left her feeling somewhat ambivalent about her multicultural competence course.

Notably, there was variation across sensemaking episodes within the context of coursework. Specific courses or incidents in the classroom that prompted the need for sensemaking did not emerge across participants’ experiences. This suggests that while coursework was one forum for participants’ sensemaking experiences, the features of the context are what triggered the need for sensemaking rather than the context itself.

Fieldwork as a context for sensemaking. In contrast to sensemaking episodes that occurred in coursework settings, those that transpired during fieldwork happened with similar frequencies across each time point in the study (see Table 5.2 and Figure 5.1). This is not to say there wasn’t a temporal element to sensemaking during fieldwork.

more likely they were to experience a sensemaking episode. Specifically, participants were thrown more often while working in their two-year assistantships (n=79; 37.8%) than they were while engaging in the their semester long practicum experiences (n=20; 9.6%).

Regardless of the field placement type, a number of individuals described encountering discrepancies between their expectations and their experiences in the workplace. For example, Dean, a White man who had worked in student affairs before beginning graduate school, was thrown when he began his Nash University assistantship at a neighboring campus that was more religiously conservative than his past institutions had been:

I’m also learning about the things that you just really don’t talk about. For example, there are no GLBTQ resources on this campus, which is definitely shocking to me. And I have not had experience with that before. And I don’t necessarily see a [pause]. I don’t know. I don’t, I can’t tell you for certain that there is a need for it. But I feel like there is probably a hidden need for it

regardless, that there are students out there who would want to make use of these