Investigating peer network structure and english learning motivation among Saudi secondary school students using social network analysis
Hafsa Pir Mukhtar, Sohil Alqazlan, Muhammad Ishtiaq, Yossef Mohamed Eid
Scientific Reports
Network design
Nodes
One hundred secondary-school EFL learners enrolled in four summer-enrichment groups.
Ties
A directed nomination from one learner to a peer with whom that learner interacted.
Methods
Directed network visualization; density and reciprocity; five centrality measures; Pearson correlations; linear regressions; and motivation assortativity.
Source: Scientific Reports
Reviewed summary
The study examined whether peer-network structure differed by gender and whether learners' network positions were associated with their motivation to learn English. The participants were 100 students in four intact summer-enrichment groups in Saudi Arabia.
Directed peer nominations produced classroom networks in which male groups were slightly denser and more reciprocal, while female learners tended to be more structurally central. None of the five tested centrality measures was significantly associated with motivation, and motivational assortativity was close to zero.
SNA
How SNA was used
The authors constructed directed networks from peer nominations, then calculated density, reciprocity, in-degree, out-degree, betweenness, closeness, and eigenvector centrality. Correlations and linear regressions tested links with motivation, while assortativity tested whether similarly motivated learners clustered together.
Source
Scientific Reports, 16, Article 19839
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-51081-1
