Enhancing peer influence in STEM learning and engagement through social media interactions using network science principles
Conference
Sadri, AM. (2020). Enhancing peer influence in STEM learning and engagement through social media interactions using network science principles
. 2020-June
Sadri, AM. (2020). Enhancing peer influence in STEM learning and engagement through social media interactions using network science principles
. 2020-June
This Work in Progress (WIP) research presents a framework to explain the usefulness of social media datasets of student interactions that can be retrieved through Twitter, a publicly available social media platform. Traditional datasets have limited capacity to adequately capture student communication strategies and analyze student interactions with such details and coverage. As such, social media datasets, enriched with student activity information over time, will be useful to capture student perception on various STEM topics covered in class and identify ways to facilitate active learning. The major focus of this research is towards understanding how STEM students are socially influenced online, while communicating course topics and interacting in their respective cohorts. The proposed framework of this research will help future studies to craft targeted information dissemination strategies for various student groups based on their online social network characteristics, activities, and interactions on how students' react to what others post in social media on a related topic. By applying network science principles, this research demonstrates how to (i) define properties and growth of student interaction networks; and (ii) classify student activities, perception and learning behaviors from individual and group dynamics. The proposed framework not only expands our knowledge of student online interaction dynamics, but will also result in better understanding of how students' express diverse concerns on a given STEM topic and how to harness and embed such information for enhancing engagement and peer influence. The peers not only include instructor and the students taking the course, but also subject matter experts, alumni, faculty, senior students among others.
