The AIR Professional File
Spring 2015, Article 136
Applications of Social Network Analysis in Institutional Research
Ning Wang
Abstract
Social network analysis (SNA), with its distinct perspective on studying relations and its exceptional capability to visualize data, should be embraced by institutional researchers as a promising new research methodology complementary to inferential and exploratory statistics. This article introduces SNA through discussion of three analytical studies on topics highly relevant to institutional research (IR): (1) double-majors, (2) gatekeeping courses, and (3) STEM pipeline leaking. The unique approach of SNA in exploring, analyzing, and presenting data has great potential for advancing IR’s analytical capacity.
Additional Information
Authors
Ning Wang, University of California, San Francisco
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