STEM learning communities promote friendships but risk academic segmentation
Wesley Jeffrey, David R. Schaefer, Di Xu, Peter McPartlan, Sabrina Solanki
Scientific Reports
Network design
Nodes
First-year students in a biological-sciences major across two entering cohorts.
Ties
A directed friendship nomination from one student to another at the end of the first quarter.
Methods
Quasi-experimental regression discontinuity, directed friendship-network measures, and cohort-specific exponential random graph models estimated with statnet.
Source: Scientific Reports
Reviewed summary
The study examined whether a first-year STEM learning community changed the size, strength, structure, and composition of friendship networks among students in the same biological-sciences major. It combined a regression-discontinuity design with relational data from two cohorts.
Participation was estimated to add about one friend in the major, with marginal statistical support, and increase the share of friends inside the learning community by 54 percentage points. The networks also became more segmented by participation status, and the ERGMs supported structured co-enrollment as a mechanism creating opportunities for ties.
SNA
How SNA was used
Directed friendship nominations were analyzed with network outcomes and exponential random graph models. The ERGMs tested whether learning-community participation, shared classes, homophily, reciprocity, and endogenous network structure were associated with the probability of a friendship tie.
Source
Scientific Reports, 12, Article 12442
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-15575-y
