What Does It All Mean? Using Sensemaking Theory with the Warrior Identity Scale to Examine Military Transition Preparedness Among U.S. Veterans

Background & Purpose: Current research suggests a variety of issues that veterans encounter can be linked back to their transition out of the military. Issues such as homelessness, unemployment, and both mental and physical health problems have been linked to military transition. A suggested point of intervention for these factors is how prepared a service member is for the transition out of the military. The government recognized this need for preparedness in 1990 when it created the Transition Assistance Programs (TAP). These programs were intended to help facilitate service members’ transition into civilian life. However, even with TAP programs, issues surrounding reintegration are still present. This study seeks to take a novel approach and explore the descriptive relationship between sensemaking, the process by which people give meaning to inform their actions, in the military and transition preparedness among a sample of veterans.

Methods: Analyses used combined datasets from a study on the wellbeing of U.S. Veterans from the San Francisco and Chicago areas (N=2006). Two measures from the questionnaire were analyzed: (1) A new measure assessing Military Transition Preparedness and (2) Warrior Identity Scale (WIS), subscales of Public Regard for the Military, Private Regard for the Military, and Military Connection respectively. The WIS was used to assess different aspects of sensemaking within the context of the military. Sensemaking broadly defined can be thought of as a prerequisite for action or inaction by describing the process for how humans strive for meaning before acting. An exploratory approach was used to understand the directional relationship between sensemaking in the military and the preparedness for transition out of the military.

Results: The new Military Transition Preparedness questionnaire received a Cronbach’s Alpha score of .754. The Pearson’s correlational analysis shows that there is a significant relationship (p≤.01) between the inputs of sensemaking and how prepared a service member was for their transition from active duty to civilian living. It was found that there was a positive relationship between the public organizational (.204) and private cognitive (.279) forms of input on transition preparedness while there was a negative relationship between connection social (-.121) input and transition preparedness. 

Conclusions & Implications: Our study yielded three main findings. (1) Military Transition Preparedness Questionnaire has good internal consistency in measuring transition preparedness of veterans. (2) There is a relationship between identity and sensemaking and a need for future research on this topic. (3) Sensemaking in the military can affect how prepared a service member is to transition to civilian life. These preliminary analyses indicate the importance of organizational, cognitive, and social sensemaking for a service member while in the military in order to better transition into civilian life. If a service member is not making sense of different elements of their time in the military, they may not be ready for something new, thereby signaling the importance of closing one chapter before starting another. Services and training, such as TAP programs, should incorporate sensemaking principles to effectively help service members transition to civilian life.