Sensemaking and social research in the analysis of educational processes: some methodological problems

In social research, the phase dedicated to concept definition constitutes the all-important contact point between the theoretical basis of the work and the data collection. This phase is more complicated when there is no common agreement between researchers regarding the meaning of a concept and when they use different (in part or completely) semantic structures. This article will take a closer look at the methodological problems underlying the comparison of the cognitive structures of different actors when the concepts are not predefined on the basis of a debate occurring within the scientific community, but are instead the product of a shared-sensemaking process.