Thinking in Stories

Background

This project looks at the sensemaking process through the lens of storytelling. The overarching goals of the research are two-fold:

a)  to understand whether and how people’s thought processes are structured narratively

b)  to design visualizations that are founded on narrative theories to support people’s cognitive processes in learning

We suggest that narratives function as a basic mental schema that help to organize information fragments that we receive from disparate sources. In current sensemaking literature, the utility of narratives is typically seen as being limited to simple presentation to others as fossilized stories. The power of narratives, however, is such that it may function to scaffold one’s own thinking throughout the sensemaking process.

Activity

Our present work focus on case scenarios of information-intensive tasks in learning. For instance, we look at the sensemaking process that occurs during the conduct of literature reviews and of critique writing. We have so far conducted studies that examine the literature review and sensemaking processes of college students, as well as faculty members. We are in the process of developing ‘Story Blocks’, an interactive visualization interface grounded in our findings and narrative theories. 

Project Team Members

• Sourabh Bhangaonkar (MS student, Visualization)
• Dr. Sharon Lynn Chu (Assistant Professor, Visualization)
• Dr. Francis Quek (Professor, Visualization)

Related Publications