Weick’s (1995) and Weick’s and associates’ (2005) theory of sense-making has been utilized to investigate educational problems involving uncertainties and ambiguities in decentralized educational contexts such as in the Anglo-American countries (e.g. Coburn, 2001; Coburn, 2005; Spillane et al., 2002a). Weick’s et al. (2005) conception of sense-making is adopted: a two-part social construction (Berger & Luckmann, 1967) process of “what’s the story here?” i.e. interpretation and “now what should I do?”  i.e. implementation.

In this research, the theory of sense-making will be deployed to investigate an educational problem that is situated in Singapore’s centralized context where decisions on resource allocations and curriculum (OECD, 2013) are made by the state, resulting in less “ambiguity about [the] ends and means of schooling”, an observation noted by Spillane (2015). Applying sense-making to a centralized education system is problematic (Spillane, 2015), since schools have less degree of freedom to decide on how to shape teaching and learning and a greater need to make sense and align to the broad central interpretations of the policies under such a contextual condition. As such, this research attempts to investigate how principals make sense of two recent overlapping educational policies on teaching and learning of 21st century competencies (21CC) and Student-Centric, Values-Driven Education (SVE) in Singapore.

This research also attempts to inquire into the factors that shape the sense-making process in a centralized context such as Singapore. From the sampled literature, it was found that both internal and external factors to the principals shape sense-making by principals. This conclusion is not too dissimilar from Spillane et al.’s (2002b) argument that teachers’ response to instructional policy is influenced by individual factors (knowledge, beliefs and emotions), and factors related to the organsiational and social contexts, among other factors. The support for the former point could be found in the fact that Weick (1995) has found that sense-making is driven by one's sense of identity. On the latter point, it should be noted that cognition is situated and contextual i.e. knowing is not solely an individual matter (Greeno, Collins & Resnick, 1986).  Rather, an individual’s sense-making is influenced by the larger social and policy context that the sense-making takes place in.  

Specifically, this research will exmaine the shaping of the process of sense-making by the principals' values and beliefs, as this aspect of research, while it has been conducted elsewhere, has not been conducted in Singapore schools before.  With regards to the external factors, this research will inquire the impact that global trends and developments will have on Singapore principals' sense-making of educational policies, a novel line of research. 

The  research questions of this inquiry are:

1. How do the experienced secondary school principals make sense of the overlapping educational policy messages of 21CC and SVE in a centralized context?

a. What interpretations do the principals make of the policy messages?

b. How do the principals implement these policy messages in their schools?

c. How do the interpretation-implementation cycle(s) look like?

2. How do factors internal and external to the experienced secondary school principals shape their interpretation and implementation of the overlapping educational policy messages of 21CC and SVE in a centralized context?     

a. How do the principals’ values and beliefs (societal, education profession, and moral and human (adapted from Day & Leithwood, 2007)) (internal factor) affect and is affected by the interpretation and implementation of these policies?

b. How do global and national trends and issues facing Singapore (external factor), either directly or indirectly through the school district context, school context and/or the principals’ values and beliefs, shape the interpretation and implementation of these policies by principals?   

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