Understanding Centrality: Investigating Student Outcomes within a Classroom Social Network

Williams, Eric A.; Brewe, Eric; Zwolak, Justyna P.; Dou, Remy

doi:10.1119/perc.2015.pr.089

Cited by 8 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…We propose that both directions of this influential pathway are possible. We claim that student engagement and academic performance exhibit a relationship that is reciprocal and iterative, i.e., that past performance influences engagement which in turn influences future performance [22,41]. Therefore, we hypothesize that student engagement in the MI classroom will predict future academic performance even when controlling for prior qualifications.…”

Section: B the Relationship Between Engagement And Performancementioning

confidence: 95%

Linking engagement and performance: The social network analysis perspective

Williams

Zwolak

Dou

et al. 2019

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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Theories developed by Tinto and Nora identify academic performance, learning gains, and involvement in learning communities as significant facets of student engagement that, in turn, support student persistence. Collaborative learning environments, such as those employed in the Modeling Instruction introductory physics course, provide structure for student engagement by encouraging peer-to-peer interactions. Because of the inherently social nature of collaborative learning, we examine student interactions in the classroom using network analysis. We use centrality-a family of measures that quantify how connected or "central" a particular student is within the classroom network-to study student engagement longitudinally. Bootstrapped linear regression modeling shows that students' centrality predicts future academic performance over and above prior GPA for three out of four centrality measures tested. In particular, we find that closeness centrality explains 28 % more of the variance than prior GPA alone. These results confirm that student engagement in the classroom is critical to supporting academic performance. Furthermore, we find that this relationship for social interactions does not emerge until the second half of the semester, suggesting that classroom community develops over time in a meaningful way.

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Section: B the Relationship Between Engagement And Performancementioning

confidence: 95%

Linking engagement and performance: The social network analysis perspective

Williams

Zwolak

Dou

et al. 2019

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

Self Cite

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show abstract

“…Here, we focus on the network of interactions captured by forum data-not just how often a student participated, but their conversation partners and overall prominence in the aggregated structure of threads. Past results from social network analysis, outlined below, suggest that the most central students in this network may experience better course outcomes [4][5][6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of university physics courses, social network analysis (SNA) has been used to contrast different classroom types [7], to explore connections between student networks and success measures [4][5][6], and to trace the development of student communities [8,9]. More broadly, studies of online course discussion forums have linked student participation in a forum network with sense of course community [10] and found that forums with a high amount of student social structure can demonstrate higher levels of critical thinking [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

CourseNetworking and community: Linking online discussion networks and course success

Traxler¹,

Gavrin²,

Lindell³

2016

2016 Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings

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Large introductory science courses are isolating for many students, and reducing this isolation is an important factor for student retention in college. Active learning courses often build community among students as an explicit goal, but many commuter or non-traditional students have limited on-campus time. Online discussion forums provide one tool for engaging students with each other outside of class time. This study uses social network analysis with forum data from an introductory physics course to examine students' positions in the class discussion network and link it to their final course grades. We find that, contrary to expectations, there is no strong correlation between forum network centrality and class outcomes. Possible reasons for this mismatch and future refinements to the model are discussed.

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“…Founded on previous SNA instruments, 16,18,39 it substantially improves measuring the intricacies of student social connections. Deploying an existing instrument was cumbersome for both participants and practitioners.…”

Section: Discussion and Implications For Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[16][17][18][19] Typically these efforts concentrate on the nature of the interactions and the interpersonal/intergroup dynamics. 14,[20][21][22][23] Examination at this micro-level is vital to understanding how relationships are formed, but tends to ignore the larger social structures of an environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%